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Hello!
Yesterday, I started a trial of the Vendetta online.
Here are my impressions:
I hope these can help the developers a bit in the future developments...
First: Thanks for making a mac game of this. We mac users are too often overlooked, and have very few games to play, so to have something like this is top notch!
I had not heard of Vendetta, before I started the trial. I had simply found a link at the insidemacgames forum, clicked, saw that it was not another run-of-the-mill dragons / wizards / elves MMORG, but one with spaceships, spacestation and the like. "Woohooo!! Where do I buy ??" So I setup the trial, and downloaded the game:
After setting up a new pilot, I followed all of the onscreen messages, in picking a ship, weapons etc. and then procedded to the first training missions. Beeing space-borne, I tried to setup my joystick. This proved slightly problematic. I have a Saitek X45. While I could setup the main axis (yaw, pitch, throttle and rudder) I could not setup the buttons. I tried doubleclicking on the functions in the "keyboard" screen, but I could not. I found a config file in the Vendetta package that I could edit, so with the Vendetta manual of app comamands, and the program "Joystick and gamepad Tester" and a piece of paper I procede to map the buttons. It works but I am not terribly impressed by it. Especially as there are some functions I havenet figured out how to setup.
Flying works. I do not like the simple mode of flying much, but I admit that it is the easiest, so for flying to and from a base, its pretty good. I have however, some problems with the physics mode. For one, the throttle does not work once I change from simple to phycics. Apparently there are two "throttles" one simple, and one for when the ship is in the advanced flight mode. I really fail to see the logic behind this, and I cannot set it up propertly with my stick. This I do not like.
One major thing: All Newtonian physics tell me that if an object is not influenced by other forces (such as gravity) it will either stand still, or if moving, continue in the direction at which it is moving, and at the speed it was moving.
So; if I enable the turbo, and then turn it of, the ship should NOT slowdown, it should continue to fly at the fast speed. And; there should be no speed limit on any craft. In space there is no air resistance, so the ship should (when I have the throttle up) continue to accelerate in infinity. The acceleration should be linear, but continue.
Its not accurate physics if the ship des not behave like this. This I think is very, very bad.
Anyway, I flew the training missions, completing them as I should, and after completing the final one (the one with six drones, and the champane and celebrations, I took a real one. I took the mission in which you have to destroy ten drones for 1000 credits. After accepting it, I found out that I acctually knew nothing of where to find the drones. The mission description did not tell me where to go find them, so I was stuck. I picked some sectors at random, flew in and out, and having found nothing I decided to screw the mission, and start another. I picked one escort mission (to some place whose name I forgot now....) As I flew, I found it hard to keep up with the ships. They bouce in and out of hyperspace faster than I can reach the perimiter, so they end up being at least one sector ahead of me all the time. The thing is, that once I enter a sector, i may not be exacly where by ships are, so as I fly towards them, they fly off, and.. the whole thing stars over.
Suddenly I get a message of the kind "xxx ship had been destroyed... look out for your escort!!" "huh"?" when did that happen ? Even though I may be in the same sector, I cannot see everything, I do not get a message of "ship this-and-that are under attack", I cannot see any red dots on the screen, The ships just disappear.. :(
I wish I could ask my ships to wait for me, and if they are under attack, that they would tell me first...
Anyway, having arrived, and all ships (that made it) had docked. I figured the mission complete. I docked at the same station, the mission was not over, so I flew back to where I started, but that was not it either. I talked to other players, who said that the escort missions werwe buggy, so I left it at that. But while looking at my mission log, i discovered that I had completed the ten drones mission. I dident know about it, I did not shoot any drones, but apprently I had completed it.
And that is how I spent my first four hours of Vendetta online.
-------
I had a hard time finind out what the missions are. Most of the missions I browsed say something like "do this" While that is the jest of it, I really would like to know:
1. go here 2. do this. 3. then comeback here/do this. Point 2 by itself is hardly enough.
The navigational maps are pretty terrible if you are doing more than one jump. I constantly got confused over where I was, and where I was going. I had the luck on pre-plotting a cource from (some starsystem) back to Sol II, but I had not realized it, so I flew around in circles, with me plotting a course, and the ship's computer replotting it for me, to some other place. Apparently there were two ways of coming back to Sol II, and because I had taken the route that the computer did not select for me, I had to go back to the starting point, and go back to Sol II again. Bloody annoying.
I really think you guys could learn something from the way Blizzard has made the tasks in WoW They have to be simple, and easy to understand.
Similarly, the spacemaps could use a makeover. And why is the space dwo dimentional anyway ??? Why isent a sector say a 6x6x6 cube instead of a flat square ???
The surrounding space is nice, I like to look around, but there is too litle to look at, I do not feel impressed by anything that I have seen so far. Its all very nice, but missing the final "wow" factor of seeing a HUGE space station, or the feeing of circling an even bigger planet etc. Also, I could not setup the keys to look around to the sides and up etc.
The interface is... well... I cannot see the logic behind it, and I really dislike having gigantic letter on my screen. I have a big monitor, not becuse I am blind, but because I like to see more on my screen. On the main menu, the font size is quite small, but once I get into the game every single letter has eaten Alice's mushrooms.
Another letdown for me is that, basiclly, I am a flying crosshair. I cannot see the cockpit of my ship. So from the inside, all ships look the same. I think that not only should there be a complete cockpit (with working screens etc.) but you should also be able to customize it (like picking upholstery color) and for instance that you could have a picture placed somewhere. (Like fighter pilots had picktures of their girlfriend in their cockips, so should we!!). Ok, so that last might be over the top, but I would really like a cockip to tell me where I am, and what ship I am in. (also, this could be used as a pro/con of different ships, so that in a transport ship you would have less visibility than in a fighter etc.)
Also, I wish that the stations were more than just a screen of text. One single 3D scene of a hangar area is enough. One single area in which (having docked your ship) you can see it from the outside standing in the hangar, and when you load/unload it, you can see the hatch open / close, when you arm the ship a crane lifts the turret... etc. And also so you in the background can see other ships land and take off.
The thought behind this is that as captain of my ship, I should have some pleasure from it. I just spent aaaaall my savings on a ship, Id better enjoy it. especially after I had traveled through the galaxy, fought pirates and space monters and whatnot.
And secondly, if there station is supposed to be full of life, I would like to see it.
I dont have to accutally go to the bar, just as long as I can see its there. :)
There you have it, those are my comments. There is a lot of negative stuff here, but its not all bad, you are doing a good job, but I think that is more sensible to say what is wrong and what can be improved than to write about all the good stuff that does not need changing. (You allready know what that is :) )
Yesterday, I started a trial of the Vendetta online.
Here are my impressions:
I hope these can help the developers a bit in the future developments...
First: Thanks for making a mac game of this. We mac users are too often overlooked, and have very few games to play, so to have something like this is top notch!
I had not heard of Vendetta, before I started the trial. I had simply found a link at the insidemacgames forum, clicked, saw that it was not another run-of-the-mill dragons / wizards / elves MMORG, but one with spaceships, spacestation and the like. "Woohooo!! Where do I buy ??" So I setup the trial, and downloaded the game:
After setting up a new pilot, I followed all of the onscreen messages, in picking a ship, weapons etc. and then procedded to the first training missions. Beeing space-borne, I tried to setup my joystick. This proved slightly problematic. I have a Saitek X45. While I could setup the main axis (yaw, pitch, throttle and rudder) I could not setup the buttons. I tried doubleclicking on the functions in the "keyboard" screen, but I could not. I found a config file in the Vendetta package that I could edit, so with the Vendetta manual of app comamands, and the program "Joystick and gamepad Tester" and a piece of paper I procede to map the buttons. It works but I am not terribly impressed by it. Especially as there are some functions I havenet figured out how to setup.
Flying works. I do not like the simple mode of flying much, but I admit that it is the easiest, so for flying to and from a base, its pretty good. I have however, some problems with the physics mode. For one, the throttle does not work once I change from simple to phycics. Apparently there are two "throttles" one simple, and one for when the ship is in the advanced flight mode. I really fail to see the logic behind this, and I cannot set it up propertly with my stick. This I do not like.
One major thing: All Newtonian physics tell me that if an object is not influenced by other forces (such as gravity) it will either stand still, or if moving, continue in the direction at which it is moving, and at the speed it was moving.
So; if I enable the turbo, and then turn it of, the ship should NOT slowdown, it should continue to fly at the fast speed. And; there should be no speed limit on any craft. In space there is no air resistance, so the ship should (when I have the throttle up) continue to accelerate in infinity. The acceleration should be linear, but continue.
Its not accurate physics if the ship des not behave like this. This I think is very, very bad.
Anyway, I flew the training missions, completing them as I should, and after completing the final one (the one with six drones, and the champane and celebrations, I took a real one. I took the mission in which you have to destroy ten drones for 1000 credits. After accepting it, I found out that I acctually knew nothing of where to find the drones. The mission description did not tell me where to go find them, so I was stuck. I picked some sectors at random, flew in and out, and having found nothing I decided to screw the mission, and start another. I picked one escort mission (to some place whose name I forgot now....) As I flew, I found it hard to keep up with the ships. They bouce in and out of hyperspace faster than I can reach the perimiter, so they end up being at least one sector ahead of me all the time. The thing is, that once I enter a sector, i may not be exacly where by ships are, so as I fly towards them, they fly off, and.. the whole thing stars over.
Suddenly I get a message of the kind "xxx ship had been destroyed... look out for your escort!!" "huh"?" when did that happen ? Even though I may be in the same sector, I cannot see everything, I do not get a message of "ship this-and-that are under attack", I cannot see any red dots on the screen, The ships just disappear.. :(
I wish I could ask my ships to wait for me, and if they are under attack, that they would tell me first...
Anyway, having arrived, and all ships (that made it) had docked. I figured the mission complete. I docked at the same station, the mission was not over, so I flew back to where I started, but that was not it either. I talked to other players, who said that the escort missions werwe buggy, so I left it at that. But while looking at my mission log, i discovered that I had completed the ten drones mission. I dident know about it, I did not shoot any drones, but apprently I had completed it.
And that is how I spent my first four hours of Vendetta online.
-------
I had a hard time finind out what the missions are. Most of the missions I browsed say something like "do this" While that is the jest of it, I really would like to know:
1. go here 2. do this. 3. then comeback here/do this. Point 2 by itself is hardly enough.
The navigational maps are pretty terrible if you are doing more than one jump. I constantly got confused over where I was, and where I was going. I had the luck on pre-plotting a cource from (some starsystem) back to Sol II, but I had not realized it, so I flew around in circles, with me plotting a course, and the ship's computer replotting it for me, to some other place. Apparently there were two ways of coming back to Sol II, and because I had taken the route that the computer did not select for me, I had to go back to the starting point, and go back to Sol II again. Bloody annoying.
I really think you guys could learn something from the way Blizzard has made the tasks in WoW They have to be simple, and easy to understand.
Similarly, the spacemaps could use a makeover. And why is the space dwo dimentional anyway ??? Why isent a sector say a 6x6x6 cube instead of a flat square ???
The surrounding space is nice, I like to look around, but there is too litle to look at, I do not feel impressed by anything that I have seen so far. Its all very nice, but missing the final "wow" factor of seeing a HUGE space station, or the feeing of circling an even bigger planet etc. Also, I could not setup the keys to look around to the sides and up etc.
The interface is... well... I cannot see the logic behind it, and I really dislike having gigantic letter on my screen. I have a big monitor, not becuse I am blind, but because I like to see more on my screen. On the main menu, the font size is quite small, but once I get into the game every single letter has eaten Alice's mushrooms.
Another letdown for me is that, basiclly, I am a flying crosshair. I cannot see the cockpit of my ship. So from the inside, all ships look the same. I think that not only should there be a complete cockpit (with working screens etc.) but you should also be able to customize it (like picking upholstery color) and for instance that you could have a picture placed somewhere. (Like fighter pilots had picktures of their girlfriend in their cockips, so should we!!). Ok, so that last might be over the top, but I would really like a cockip to tell me where I am, and what ship I am in. (also, this could be used as a pro/con of different ships, so that in a transport ship you would have less visibility than in a fighter etc.)
Also, I wish that the stations were more than just a screen of text. One single 3D scene of a hangar area is enough. One single area in which (having docked your ship) you can see it from the outside standing in the hangar, and when you load/unload it, you can see the hatch open / close, when you arm the ship a crane lifts the turret... etc. And also so you in the background can see other ships land and take off.
The thought behind this is that as captain of my ship, I should have some pleasure from it. I just spent aaaaall my savings on a ship, Id better enjoy it. especially after I had traveled through the galaxy, fought pirates and space monters and whatnot.
And secondly, if there station is supposed to be full of life, I would like to see it.
I dont have to accutally go to the bar, just as long as I can see its there. :)
There you have it, those are my comments. There is a lot of negative stuff here, but its not all bad, you are doing a good job, but I think that is more sensible to say what is wrong and what can be improved than to write about all the good stuff that does not need changing. (You allready know what that is :) )
Bleeding blogger.
their girlfriend in their cockips
Yeeeeaaahhh...
Yeeeeaaahhh...
Fair points , well made .
Have a read at the mac and bugs forums , many of the joystick and interface problems have been covered there , or ask in game.
I can understand your frustration with the current missions, the missions should explain that , for instance , you need a faster ship for escorting convoys.
Have a good look under options , text size is scaleable . A bit of messing about with screen resolutions pays dividends.
VO is a game which takes quite a while to learn , and it is true that many things are not intuitive . I know that the devs are aware of a need for better descriptions , manuals and training , and I'm sure that it will happen in time.
Cheers
Ecka
Have a read at the mac and bugs forums , many of the joystick and interface problems have been covered there , or ask in game.
I can understand your frustration with the current missions, the missions should explain that , for instance , you need a faster ship for escorting convoys.
Have a good look under options , text size is scaleable . A bit of messing about with screen resolutions pays dividends.
VO is a game which takes quite a while to learn , and it is true that many things are not intuitive . I know that the devs are aware of a need for better descriptions , manuals and training , and I'm sure that it will happen in time.
Cheers
Ecka
Hey CH, I would recommend using the Saitek profiling software that came with your joystick. I bought the X52 specifically for VO, and the profiler made setting it up easy. Once you know all the key commands in VO, you can map them to all the buttons of the stick. The game *can* handle that, but it's easier to just let the Saitek software do it and leave handling the axes up to the game.
I just recently switched to dual Saitek Cyborg EVOs - same story. Leave the axes to the game, and let the profiler handle the buttons.
I brought up the throtle issue before, but generally speaking, it's not that important, since you wouldn't use the throttle properly in physics mode anyway, since you want to take advantage of all directions of thrust, and are better off using the keyboard, or getting a second sick for the thrust axis (as I did - two EVOs = 8 axes including the throttle axes, which I never use)
"So; if I enable the turbo, and then turn it of, the ship should NOT slowdown, it should continue to fly at the fast speed. And; there should be no speed limit on any craft. In space there is no air resistance, so the ship should (when I have the throttle up) continue to accelerate in infinity. The acceleration should be linear, but continue.
Its not accurate physics if the ship des not behave like this. This I think is very, very bad."
This enhances gameplay, since without combat, there isn't much gameplay. The physics model of VO makes combat interesting by leveling the playing field and giving everyone a reason to stand and fight - it's not just the ship with the most thrust always gets away (and thank God it's not, because then nobody would ever fly anything else, and the universe would be a very boring place indeed). That said, there have been talks in the suggestions forum about changing the turbo physics to something that more closely resembles the newtonian model (but not exactly, since we want to preserve the gameplay)
The mission srings are a work-in-progress, and currently run by DELIVERATOR (or as some like to call it, Debilitator), a buggy demand-driven AI coordinating system that's due for replacement sometime in the very near future. The new system will be called KOURIER, and should eliminate the 'bugs' you encountered in those missions before too long. More missions are on their way, and the beginnings of mission strings are already appearing for testing at some in-game locations.
"I really think you guys could learn something from the way Blizzard has made the tasks in WoW They have to be simple, and easy to understand."
Luckily, the average VO player is smarter than the average WoW player, so we get few complaints over the need to 'dumb down' the system.
"Similarly, the spacemaps could use a makeover. And why is the space dwo dimentional anyway ??? Why isent a sector say a 6x6x6 cube instead of a flat square ???"
Ironically, weren't we just talking about how you think things are too complicated? How about we use a cubic sector grid when you figure out how to design and use an interface for it efficiently? The universe map will be changed eventually (not quite Soon(TM)) to allow for exploration, and I imagine that making the map more appealing and less flat lies somewhere around there on the priorities list.
Did I mention the GUI is also a work in progress?
Most of the rest of your post belongs on the suggestion forum. I would suggest breaking it down by topic and searching for it on there, and starting new topics if you can't find them (be sure to check the "READ THIS BEFORE POSTING" thread), as I have a feeling most of those have been suggested before, such as the scaling, etc.
Welcome to Vendetta Online, where action is the primary feature.
I just recently switched to dual Saitek Cyborg EVOs - same story. Leave the axes to the game, and let the profiler handle the buttons.
I brought up the throtle issue before, but generally speaking, it's not that important, since you wouldn't use the throttle properly in physics mode anyway, since you want to take advantage of all directions of thrust, and are better off using the keyboard, or getting a second sick for the thrust axis (as I did - two EVOs = 8 axes including the throttle axes, which I never use)
"So; if I enable the turbo, and then turn it of, the ship should NOT slowdown, it should continue to fly at the fast speed. And; there should be no speed limit on any craft. In space there is no air resistance, so the ship should (when I have the throttle up) continue to accelerate in infinity. The acceleration should be linear, but continue.
Its not accurate physics if the ship des not behave like this. This I think is very, very bad."
This enhances gameplay, since without combat, there isn't much gameplay. The physics model of VO makes combat interesting by leveling the playing field and giving everyone a reason to stand and fight - it's not just the ship with the most thrust always gets away (and thank God it's not, because then nobody would ever fly anything else, and the universe would be a very boring place indeed). That said, there have been talks in the suggestions forum about changing the turbo physics to something that more closely resembles the newtonian model (but not exactly, since we want to preserve the gameplay)
The mission srings are a work-in-progress, and currently run by DELIVERATOR (or as some like to call it, Debilitator), a buggy demand-driven AI coordinating system that's due for replacement sometime in the very near future. The new system will be called KOURIER, and should eliminate the 'bugs' you encountered in those missions before too long. More missions are on their way, and the beginnings of mission strings are already appearing for testing at some in-game locations.
"I really think you guys could learn something from the way Blizzard has made the tasks in WoW They have to be simple, and easy to understand."
Luckily, the average VO player is smarter than the average WoW player, so we get few complaints over the need to 'dumb down' the system.
"Similarly, the spacemaps could use a makeover. And why is the space dwo dimentional anyway ??? Why isent a sector say a 6x6x6 cube instead of a flat square ???"
Ironically, weren't we just talking about how you think things are too complicated? How about we use a cubic sector grid when you figure out how to design and use an interface for it efficiently? The universe map will be changed eventually (not quite Soon(TM)) to allow for exploration, and I imagine that making the map more appealing and less flat lies somewhere around there on the priorities list.
Did I mention the GUI is also a work in progress?
Most of the rest of your post belongs on the suggestion forum. I would suggest breaking it down by topic and searching for it on there, and starting new topics if you can't find them (be sure to check the "READ THIS BEFORE POSTING" thread), as I have a feeling most of those have been suggested before, such as the scaling, etc.
Welcome to Vendetta Online, where action is the primary feature.
1) newtonian physics - Current badnwidth could not support people flying at 1,000+ m/s without major lag. THis game was designed so even people still on dialup can play.
2) Escort missions are part of a process called the Deliverator. The Deliverator is currently very broken and is being overhauled.
3) The map. The map is functional wouldn't you agree? It gets the job done. And overhauling it as you suggested would take major thinking and reworking all those convoys you saw flying around (station locations, hell all locations would change). So for the moment and the indefinite future, 2D maps are fine, I'd say.
4) Huge stations would kill framerate and badnwidth, moreso framerate I heard. Currently, one can play Vendetta on 8 megs of VRAM with half a gig of memory and a half gig processor, or even less.
5) Press Escape, go to Interface, click font scaling. it geso from 0.5 to 1.0 . Make your letters smaller that way.
6) Look down on the HUD, below the crosshair. Right there is the system name and sector designation. Also, to find out what ship you are in, look to the right and see that ship model? A bove it should say the ship model and variant.
7) Here's the same spiel that I've seen over the years:
Only four developers. Barely making it by. Doing their hardest. Don't compare them to Blizzard please.
2) Escort missions are part of a process called the Deliverator. The Deliverator is currently very broken and is being overhauled.
3) The map. The map is functional wouldn't you agree? It gets the job done. And overhauling it as you suggested would take major thinking and reworking all those convoys you saw flying around (station locations, hell all locations would change). So for the moment and the indefinite future, 2D maps are fine, I'd say.
4) Huge stations would kill framerate and badnwidth, moreso framerate I heard. Currently, one can play Vendetta on 8 megs of VRAM with half a gig of memory and a half gig processor, or even less.
5) Press Escape, go to Interface, click font scaling. it geso from 0.5 to 1.0 . Make your letters smaller that way.
6) Look down on the HUD, below the crosshair. Right there is the system name and sector designation. Also, to find out what ship you are in, look to the right and see that ship model? A bove it should say the ship model and variant.
7) Here's the same spiel that I've seen over the years:
Only four developers. Barely making it by. Doing their hardest. Don't compare them to Blizzard please.
I'd say the 2D map for star systems is actually very realistic.
From what we know about them, they are pretty flat - the orbits of major objects around stars lie on a common plane, in the majority of cases: using a 3D cube instead of a 2D grid would be just useless, besides adding complexity to the interface.
Now, a 3D interstellar map could be a nifty idea, but since we use wormholes anyway (an one-dimensional concept), there wouldn't be a real benefit for that either.
Ah, if you want to see your own ship (and become totally unable to pilot it), explore the effect of repeatedly pressing F9. That's the outside cam - fixed on your ship, fixed on your course, fixed in space.
From what we know about them, they are pretty flat - the orbits of major objects around stars lie on a common plane, in the majority of cases: using a 3D cube instead of a 2D grid would be just useless, besides adding complexity to the interface.
Now, a 3D interstellar map could be a nifty idea, but since we use wormholes anyway (an one-dimensional concept), there wouldn't be a real benefit for that either.
Ah, if you want to see your own ship (and become totally unable to pilot it), explore the effect of repeatedly pressing F9. That's the outside cam - fixed on your ship, fixed on your course, fixed in space.
He definately got in over his head with the missions. Perhaps new pilots should be limited to the very easy missions.
Missions should be marked by a difficulty level maybe. Anyway, something that new players could go by and complete without getting frustrated to start.
Great input, many points made by others also players who have played this game for 3 years or more. Its a work in progress.
Great input, many points made by others also players who have played this game for 3 years or more. Its a work in progress.
Well let's start from the beginning. The difference between having "Flight Assist" on or off is simple. Flight Assist basically takes the Flight Assist Off mode, disables your backward movement, and counteracts your flight inputs so you don't drift around. It doesn't mean that one mode's physics model is less accurate than the other (which is why it was changed from "Physics" and "Arcade" modes), it just means that the computer does some stuff for you.
As for newtonian physics. Basically, newtonian physics ring true until you hit turbo. While yes, logically you would continue at that speed, but then issues arose in combat. When two ships are both moving 65 m/s, combat can be fast enough, sometimes even too fast, but if each were moving at 240 m/s?...
On top of the bottleneck of human reaction time (:P), at those speeds lag becomes an issue. If I pass you at a combined speed of 480 m/s, and you're on a 56k modem, do you think it'd be remotely possible for your computer to send out enough packets to let VO's server know that you were dodging my shots, rather than flying straight into them? Heck, that can even be an issue as it is right now!
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If a system were represented as a cube, we'd be using less than 10% of it (figure a 10x10x10 box to keep the numbers nice).
Our solar system, for the most part, is flat. Everything tends to lie on a single plane, except for Pluto, which is no longer a planet. On top of that, planets are small. Just tiny. What's the figure? 1 million Earths could fit inside the Sun? 1000 Earths inside Jupiter? Something like that. But yea, when it comes down to it, planets are insignficantly small when compared to the size of their orbits. So even if there were more asteroid belts and the planets were closer together, the only really useful sectors would be a 1x10x10 box in the middle of a 10x10x10 cube. Well okay, I guess you'd need 2x10x10 to get the tops and bottoms of planets :P but you get the picture.
So if everything is on a single plane in the solar system, then logically all trading would tend to occur on that plane, and the usefulness of heading above and below that plane is severely limited to say the least. Okay, so maybe you put a wormhole up top somewhere, and maybe one below, but what's inbetween? Nothing. So it really wouldn't ADD anything to gameplay to create a more complicated map, other than to confuse people.
The problem with any 3d map or radar system in VO (and this has been discussed ad nauseum) is the fact that no matter how you do it, you're still projecting that 3d object on a 2d surface (your monitor). Because you lose that depth, 3d maps can be very difficult to deal with. For instance, have you ever played Star Control 3? They had a 3d map and it was really hard to use. You could select two systems that appeared to be fairly close together, but then you had to rotate the map to make sure you really weren't setting up a trip across the galaxy when you really just wanted to go to the neighboring system.
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And anyway yea, just remember 4 devs at an independent company, not a large corporation with hundreds of programmers, artists, etc. There's just a slight difference in the amount of work they can do in a given amount of time. Guild has its priorities, and they're doing an extremely good job with such a small dev team. They manage to put out updates once or twice a month, and are very receptive to players' wants and needs. But they will never be as fast as Blizzard when it comes to making sweeping changes to their game.
As for newtonian physics. Basically, newtonian physics ring true until you hit turbo. While yes, logically you would continue at that speed, but then issues arose in combat. When two ships are both moving 65 m/s, combat can be fast enough, sometimes even too fast, but if each were moving at 240 m/s?...
On top of the bottleneck of human reaction time (:P), at those speeds lag becomes an issue. If I pass you at a combined speed of 480 m/s, and you're on a 56k modem, do you think it'd be remotely possible for your computer to send out enough packets to let VO's server know that you were dodging my shots, rather than flying straight into them? Heck, that can even be an issue as it is right now!
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If a system were represented as a cube, we'd be using less than 10% of it (figure a 10x10x10 box to keep the numbers nice).
Our solar system, for the most part, is flat. Everything tends to lie on a single plane, except for Pluto, which is no longer a planet. On top of that, planets are small. Just tiny. What's the figure? 1 million Earths could fit inside the Sun? 1000 Earths inside Jupiter? Something like that. But yea, when it comes down to it, planets are insignficantly small when compared to the size of their orbits. So even if there were more asteroid belts and the planets were closer together, the only really useful sectors would be a 1x10x10 box in the middle of a 10x10x10 cube. Well okay, I guess you'd need 2x10x10 to get the tops and bottoms of planets :P but you get the picture.
So if everything is on a single plane in the solar system, then logically all trading would tend to occur on that plane, and the usefulness of heading above and below that plane is severely limited to say the least. Okay, so maybe you put a wormhole up top somewhere, and maybe one below, but what's inbetween? Nothing. So it really wouldn't ADD anything to gameplay to create a more complicated map, other than to confuse people.
The problem with any 3d map or radar system in VO (and this has been discussed ad nauseum) is the fact that no matter how you do it, you're still projecting that 3d object on a 2d surface (your monitor). Because you lose that depth, 3d maps can be very difficult to deal with. For instance, have you ever played Star Control 3? They had a 3d map and it was really hard to use. You could select two systems that appeared to be fairly close together, but then you had to rotate the map to make sure you really weren't setting up a trip across the galaxy when you really just wanted to go to the neighboring system.
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And anyway yea, just remember 4 devs at an independent company, not a large corporation with hundreds of programmers, artists, etc. There's just a slight difference in the amount of work they can do in a given amount of time. Guild has its priorities, and they're doing an extremely good job with such a small dev team. They manage to put out updates once or twice a month, and are very receptive to players' wants and needs. But they will never be as fast as Blizzard when it comes to making sweeping changes to their game.
Gorman: "What is it, Hicks?"
Hudson: "Hudson, sir, he's Hicks."
Gorman: "What is it... Private?"
Hudson: "How do I get out of this chickenshit outfit?
Apone: "You secure that shit, Hudson!"
Aaaah, Aliens, perhaps my most favorite SciFi movie... EVER.
First: Thanks for making a mac game of this. We mac users are too often overlooked, and have very few games to play, so to have something like this is top notch!
Yeah, Mac support is pretty much mandatory for me. It's a great game for the price.
Re: Your Saitek X45 supercool blue glowing joystick setup: Listen to Cunjo - he has that same setup, until he switched to my setup of dual Saitek Cyborg Evos. Dual joysticks pretty much rule. Of course, there are always mouse & keyboard purists...
All Newtonian physics tell me that if an object is not influenced by other forces (such as gravity) it will either stand still, or if moving, continue in the direction at which it is moving, and at the speed it was moving.So; if I enable the turbo, and then turn it of, the ship should NOT slowdown, it should continue to fly at the fast speed. And; there should be no speed limit on any craft. In space there is no air resistance, so the ship should (when I have the throttle up) continue to accelerate in infinity. The acceleration should be linear, but continue. Its not accurate physics if the ship des not behave like this. This I think is very, very bad.
The "ingame" answer is that the ships use gravitic engines and "pull" themselves thru the fabric of spacetime, but when the power to those engines cuts off, the extradimensional "drag" from spacetime slows them down, not newtonian "friction" or whatnot.
The "out-of-game" answer is that, at speeds much faster than 100 m/s, no aiming and/or dogfighting is possible. I mean, you can fire missiles and run away, but that's boring as shit. So the ships had to be slowed down in order to make the fights "fun". In fact, when in a dogfight, I routinely SLOW myself down to around 30 m/s...
Re: your experience with the escort missions, well, a n00b in a bus probably isn't in any position to protect a fast-moving convoy from anything. You just took a mission that was too high-level for you at the moment. Don't worry, eventually you'll be able to do the escort missions without too much trouble. But, asking the ships to "wait" for their combat-ready escort in the middle of an Ion Storm isn't going to happen. Hehe.
Re: Buggy missions. Yeah, apparently there's some bugginess with the missions, as the developers are rewriting the entire AI system for all NPC's from SCRATCH. The old "DELIVERATOR" one crashes every few hours due to a bug in Lisp. The new "KOURIER" system is being written in Erlang. (I confess to never having heard of Erlang until 2 months ago.)
I had a hard time finind out what the missions are. Most of the missions I browsed say something like "do this" While that is the jest of it, I really would like to know:
1. go here 2. do this. 3. then comeback here/do this. Point 2 by itself is hardly enough.
The navigational maps are pretty terrible if you are doing more than one jump. I constantly got confused over where I was, and where I was going. I had the luck on pre-plotting a cource from (some starsystem) back to Sol II, but I had not realized it, so I flew around in circles, with me plotting a course, and the ship's computer replotting it for me, to some other place. Apparently there were two ways of coming back to Sol II, and because I had taken the route that the computer did not select for me, I had to go back to the starting point, and go back to Sol II again. Bloody annoying.
Well, yeah, making it simple would be better, that is for sure. Navigating around the galaxy is tough and kinda confusing for new players. I remember my first couple of extra-system jumps. Luckily I had a readily available mentor. (Thanks, Churin!) Perhaps not SO simple as tasks in WoW (I do not play but it seems like they were written for an 8-year old).
Similarly, the spacemaps could use a makeover. And why is the space dwo dimentional anyway ??? Why isent a sector say a 6x6x6 cube instead of a flat square ???
Ha! Agreed. I'd love a 3D map, that would completely rock. Space is 2-D because it's a game I guess.
The surrounding space is nice, I like to look around, but there is too litle to look at, I do not feel impressed by anything that I have seen so far. Its all very nice, but missing the final "wow" factor of seeing a HUGE space station, or the feeing of circling an even bigger planet etc.
Agreed. The game needs a sense of scale, with monstrous stations and gigantic motherships. There's a "Sense of Scale" thread on this.
The interface is... well... I cannot see the logic behind it, and I really dislike having gigantic letter on my screen. I have a big monitor, not becuse I am blind, but because I like to see more on my screen. On the main menu, the font size is quite small, but once I get into the game every single letter has eaten Alice's mushrooms.
F5 toggles between big and small onscreen interfaces. Of course, I don't know if the "small" will be small ENOUGH for you...
Another letdown for me is that, basiclly, I am a flying crosshair. I cannot see the cockpit of my ship. So from the inside, all ships look the same. I think that not only should there be a complete cockpit (with working screens etc.) but you should also be able to customize it (like picking upholstery color) and for instance that you could have a picture placed somewhere. (Like fighter pilots had picktures of their girlfriend in their cockips, so should we!!). Ok, so that last might be over the top, but I would really like a cockip to tell me where I am, and what ship I am in. (also, this could be used as a pro/con of different ships, so that in a transport ship you would have less visibility than in a fighter etc.)
and
Also, I could not setup the keys to look around to the sides and up etc.
Well, F9 gives you different views, but being able to "look around/behind you in your cockpit" is a frequently-requested thing. Especially for those of us who want to fly in formation or whatnot. But in reality, most of the light ships whip around so fast that that kind of "looking around inside" would essentially be useless. As far as differentiating between ships and/or customizing the upholstery, I suppose that would be neat. But rather low on the priority list.
Also, I wish that the stations were more than just a screen of text. One single 3D scene of a hangar area is enough. One single area in which (having docked your ship) you can see it from the outside standing in the hangar, and when you load/unload it, you can see the hatch open / close, when you arm the ship a crane lifts the turret... etc. And also so you in the background can see other ships land and take off. The thought behind this is that as captain of my ship, I should have some pleasure from it. I just spent aaaaall my savings on a ship, Id better enjoy it. especially after I had traveled through the galaxy, fought pirates and space monters and whatnot. And secondly, if there station is supposed to be full of life, I would like to see it. I dont have to accutally go to the bar, just as long as I can see its there. :)
That's an interesting take on the whole "walking around in stations" thing. A single view of the station docking bay, or maybe the bar, in the background would be neat. However, that's more rendering and concepts and drawing for the developers, and I'm afraid that it's probably at or near the bottom of the to-do list. You know you can see the exterior of the station you're currently at in the background, though... right? It's the background behind the current station interface.
Welcome to VO. If you subscribe by paying the paltry $10 for a month, I'll buy ya a tequila.
Hudson: "Hudson, sir, he's Hicks."
Gorman: "What is it... Private?"
Hudson: "How do I get out of this chickenshit outfit?
Apone: "You secure that shit, Hudson!"
Aaaah, Aliens, perhaps my most favorite SciFi movie... EVER.
First: Thanks for making a mac game of this. We mac users are too often overlooked, and have very few games to play, so to have something like this is top notch!
Yeah, Mac support is pretty much mandatory for me. It's a great game for the price.
Re: Your Saitek X45 supercool blue glowing joystick setup: Listen to Cunjo - he has that same setup, until he switched to my setup of dual Saitek Cyborg Evos. Dual joysticks pretty much rule. Of course, there are always mouse & keyboard purists...
All Newtonian physics tell me that if an object is not influenced by other forces (such as gravity) it will either stand still, or if moving, continue in the direction at which it is moving, and at the speed it was moving.So; if I enable the turbo, and then turn it of, the ship should NOT slowdown, it should continue to fly at the fast speed. And; there should be no speed limit on any craft. In space there is no air resistance, so the ship should (when I have the throttle up) continue to accelerate in infinity. The acceleration should be linear, but continue. Its not accurate physics if the ship des not behave like this. This I think is very, very bad.
The "ingame" answer is that the ships use gravitic engines and "pull" themselves thru the fabric of spacetime, but when the power to those engines cuts off, the extradimensional "drag" from spacetime slows them down, not newtonian "friction" or whatnot.
The "out-of-game" answer is that, at speeds much faster than 100 m/s, no aiming and/or dogfighting is possible. I mean, you can fire missiles and run away, but that's boring as shit. So the ships had to be slowed down in order to make the fights "fun". In fact, when in a dogfight, I routinely SLOW myself down to around 30 m/s...
Re: your experience with the escort missions, well, a n00b in a bus probably isn't in any position to protect a fast-moving convoy from anything. You just took a mission that was too high-level for you at the moment. Don't worry, eventually you'll be able to do the escort missions without too much trouble. But, asking the ships to "wait" for their combat-ready escort in the middle of an Ion Storm isn't going to happen. Hehe.
Re: Buggy missions. Yeah, apparently there's some bugginess with the missions, as the developers are rewriting the entire AI system for all NPC's from SCRATCH. The old "DELIVERATOR" one crashes every few hours due to a bug in Lisp. The new "KOURIER" system is being written in Erlang. (I confess to never having heard of Erlang until 2 months ago.)
I had a hard time finind out what the missions are. Most of the missions I browsed say something like "do this" While that is the jest of it, I really would like to know:
1. go here 2. do this. 3. then comeback here/do this. Point 2 by itself is hardly enough.
The navigational maps are pretty terrible if you are doing more than one jump. I constantly got confused over where I was, and where I was going. I had the luck on pre-plotting a cource from (some starsystem) back to Sol II, but I had not realized it, so I flew around in circles, with me plotting a course, and the ship's computer replotting it for me, to some other place. Apparently there were two ways of coming back to Sol II, and because I had taken the route that the computer did not select for me, I had to go back to the starting point, and go back to Sol II again. Bloody annoying.
Well, yeah, making it simple would be better, that is for sure. Navigating around the galaxy is tough and kinda confusing for new players. I remember my first couple of extra-system jumps. Luckily I had a readily available mentor. (Thanks, Churin!) Perhaps not SO simple as tasks in WoW (I do not play but it seems like they were written for an 8-year old).
Similarly, the spacemaps could use a makeover. And why is the space dwo dimentional anyway ??? Why isent a sector say a 6x6x6 cube instead of a flat square ???
Ha! Agreed. I'd love a 3D map, that would completely rock. Space is 2-D because it's a game I guess.
The surrounding space is nice, I like to look around, but there is too litle to look at, I do not feel impressed by anything that I have seen so far. Its all very nice, but missing the final "wow" factor of seeing a HUGE space station, or the feeing of circling an even bigger planet etc.
Agreed. The game needs a sense of scale, with monstrous stations and gigantic motherships. There's a "Sense of Scale" thread on this.
The interface is... well... I cannot see the logic behind it, and I really dislike having gigantic letter on my screen. I have a big monitor, not becuse I am blind, but because I like to see more on my screen. On the main menu, the font size is quite small, but once I get into the game every single letter has eaten Alice's mushrooms.
F5 toggles between big and small onscreen interfaces. Of course, I don't know if the "small" will be small ENOUGH for you...
Another letdown for me is that, basiclly, I am a flying crosshair. I cannot see the cockpit of my ship. So from the inside, all ships look the same. I think that not only should there be a complete cockpit (with working screens etc.) but you should also be able to customize it (like picking upholstery color) and for instance that you could have a picture placed somewhere. (Like fighter pilots had picktures of their girlfriend in their cockips, so should we!!). Ok, so that last might be over the top, but I would really like a cockip to tell me where I am, and what ship I am in. (also, this could be used as a pro/con of different ships, so that in a transport ship you would have less visibility than in a fighter etc.)
and
Also, I could not setup the keys to look around to the sides and up etc.
Well, F9 gives you different views, but being able to "look around/behind you in your cockpit" is a frequently-requested thing. Especially for those of us who want to fly in formation or whatnot. But in reality, most of the light ships whip around so fast that that kind of "looking around inside" would essentially be useless. As far as differentiating between ships and/or customizing the upholstery, I suppose that would be neat. But rather low on the priority list.
Also, I wish that the stations were more than just a screen of text. One single 3D scene of a hangar area is enough. One single area in which (having docked your ship) you can see it from the outside standing in the hangar, and when you load/unload it, you can see the hatch open / close, when you arm the ship a crane lifts the turret... etc. And also so you in the background can see other ships land and take off. The thought behind this is that as captain of my ship, I should have some pleasure from it. I just spent aaaaall my savings on a ship, Id better enjoy it. especially after I had traveled through the galaxy, fought pirates and space monters and whatnot. And secondly, if there station is supposed to be full of life, I would like to see it. I dont have to accutally go to the bar, just as long as I can see its there. :)
That's an interesting take on the whole "walking around in stations" thing. A single view of the station docking bay, or maybe the bar, in the background would be neat. However, that's more rendering and concepts and drawing for the developers, and I'm afraid that it's probably at or near the bottom of the to-do list. You know you can see the exterior of the station you're currently at in the background, though... right? It's the background behind the current station interface.
Welcome to VO. If you subscribe by paying the paltry $10 for a month, I'll buy ya a tequila.
"Your Saitek X45 supercool blue glowing joystick setup: Listen to Cunjo - he has that same setup, until he switched to my setup of dual Saitek Cyborg Evos. Dual joysticks pretty much rule. Of course, there are always mouse & keyboard purists..."
I used a Saitek X52, Leber. The X45 was too small for my hand, and couldn't be adjusted properly... besides which, I liked the extra features of the 52, such as the 8-way throttle hat switch, which I thought would work well for lateral thrust conrol.... moral of the story: when buying Saitek, don't trust the packaging.
"Also, I could not setup the keys to look around to the sides and up etc.
-----
Well, F9 gives you different views, but being able to "look around/behind you in your cockpit" is a frequently-requested thing. Especially for those of us who want to fly in formation or whatnot. But in reality, most of the light ships whip around so fast that that kind of "looking around inside" would essentially be useless."
I forgot to mention, and apparently Leber forgets, but... if you want to look behind you, to the side, up, around and whatnot, you can always do that in mouselook mode by locking your pitch and yaw rotational axes with the turbo key and moving the mouse. If you don't want to be turboing around at high speed while you do it, just apply the brakes at the same time.
I used a Saitek X52, Leber. The X45 was too small for my hand, and couldn't be adjusted properly... besides which, I liked the extra features of the 52, such as the 8-way throttle hat switch, which I thought would work well for lateral thrust conrol.... moral of the story: when buying Saitek, don't trust the packaging.
"Also, I could not setup the keys to look around to the sides and up etc.
-----
Well, F9 gives you different views, but being able to "look around/behind you in your cockpit" is a frequently-requested thing. Especially for those of us who want to fly in formation or whatnot. But in reality, most of the light ships whip around so fast that that kind of "looking around inside" would essentially be useless."
I forgot to mention, and apparently Leber forgets, but... if you want to look behind you, to the side, up, around and whatnot, you can always do that in mouselook mode by locking your pitch and yaw rotational axes with the turbo key and moving the mouse. If you don't want to be turboing around at high speed while you do it, just apply the brakes at the same time.
Can't use mouselook mode with joysticks, tho. And yeah, it's an X52. Please excuse my grevious error.
I have a mouselook toggle on my joy. It's not as if any joy-users disconnect their mice to play VO.
Hello!
Thank you for the replies!
There are a lot of sensible, and decent explanations for why / why not things are as they are.
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I have bought a subscription, more on that later, first:
The flight Physics... well, granted I had not though of the gameplay angle that much as I should. A physicly accurate combat could become pretty lame pretty quick. Not to mention most would end with playes colliding at 500 m/s ;)
2D space / maps , ok let them be :)
Joystick: Well, it works now, after a few attempts, and also I changed my controls on the stick...
As for the Blizzard comparison:
First: Do you remember how Blizzard came to be one of the biggest (and some say best) games company ?
Attention to every tiny little detail. For instance about the mission here... In WoW, the missions are color coded, so if you take a mission that is well below your current level, it is gray, if is easy for you, it is green, medium is yellow, and hard is red. (With bloody red for ultra..)
Things like that do not cost that much time or effort. All it takes is to have the mission comuter mark the missions depending on the players x/x/x/x/x/ rating... :)
Those are the things I was was refering to.
From what I can see, VO is developed by doing something here, then a little bit here, and then comng back to touch something here etc. I can understand the approach, as it allows the developrs to see as the whole thing works together, but is a bit annoying as a player to fly to a station with no mission, or have a mission mess up etc. The other method, might mean that all missions might be there but with only one ship, or all ships, but no sace in which to fly them etc. So its all the same I guess..
----
Since my trial ended, I have bought a subscription to the game, and have been flying since. I have a hornet, and am making life unsafe in the Deneb sector as we speak.
I have a 3/4/2/3/2 rating, so not so high but still..
I cannot quite understand the selection of the ships that I can see, and that I am allowed to fly. I mean, for instance the Hornet, has four small ...holes... and the Vulture has only two, yet the ships are very similar in performance and size, so I cant see any reason to pick the Vulture...
Combat is great. There is a bit too much of this sidestepping disco going round, but that might change when different ships arrive. (I would like to see some ships which are totally unusable for sidestepping, and instead used for hit-run tactics for instance.) I also very strongly support the idea of more scaling of ship size. (All it takes is to do a scale 150%, scale 200% and so on on most ships, no.. ? ;)
The actual space travel is a bit tedious though. That gets me a bit down. Its always; fly out to 3000 meters, activate. fly out to 3000 meters, activate, fly to wormhole, activate. Oh, ion storm, fly to exitpoint, activate. rinse, repeat.
I wish the entering / exiting animaions were shorter (half a second instead of two), and that I would "stay" in the cockpit for the duration. Its not so cool to enter a hostile sector and you need to orientate on where you are first, while the enemy is allready shooting at you... And a simple autopilot would do wonders for those long trade routes. :)
The community is nice, people flying are helpfull, there is the occasional shoot-a-mining-unarmed-EC89-in-the-back type of person (he is on my hitlist BTW) but they seem to be far and between. So, I stay. and fly.
Thank you for the replies!
There are a lot of sensible, and decent explanations for why / why not things are as they are.
---
I have bought a subscription, more on that later, first:
The flight Physics... well, granted I had not though of the gameplay angle that much as I should. A physicly accurate combat could become pretty lame pretty quick. Not to mention most would end with playes colliding at 500 m/s ;)
2D space / maps , ok let them be :)
Joystick: Well, it works now, after a few attempts, and also I changed my controls on the stick...
As for the Blizzard comparison:
First: Do you remember how Blizzard came to be one of the biggest (and some say best) games company ?
Attention to every tiny little detail. For instance about the mission here... In WoW, the missions are color coded, so if you take a mission that is well below your current level, it is gray, if is easy for you, it is green, medium is yellow, and hard is red. (With bloody red for ultra..)
Things like that do not cost that much time or effort. All it takes is to have the mission comuter mark the missions depending on the players x/x/x/x/x/ rating... :)
Those are the things I was was refering to.
From what I can see, VO is developed by doing something here, then a little bit here, and then comng back to touch something here etc. I can understand the approach, as it allows the developrs to see as the whole thing works together, but is a bit annoying as a player to fly to a station with no mission, or have a mission mess up etc. The other method, might mean that all missions might be there but with only one ship, or all ships, but no sace in which to fly them etc. So its all the same I guess..
----
Since my trial ended, I have bought a subscription to the game, and have been flying since. I have a hornet, and am making life unsafe in the Deneb sector as we speak.
I have a 3/4/2/3/2 rating, so not so high but still..
I cannot quite understand the selection of the ships that I can see, and that I am allowed to fly. I mean, for instance the Hornet, has four small ...holes... and the Vulture has only two, yet the ships are very similar in performance and size, so I cant see any reason to pick the Vulture...
Combat is great. There is a bit too much of this sidestepping disco going round, but that might change when different ships arrive. (I would like to see some ships which are totally unusable for sidestepping, and instead used for hit-run tactics for instance.) I also very strongly support the idea of more scaling of ship size. (All it takes is to do a scale 150%, scale 200% and so on on most ships, no.. ? ;)
The actual space travel is a bit tedious though. That gets me a bit down. Its always; fly out to 3000 meters, activate. fly out to 3000 meters, activate, fly to wormhole, activate. Oh, ion storm, fly to exitpoint, activate. rinse, repeat.
I wish the entering / exiting animaions were shorter (half a second instead of two), and that I would "stay" in the cockpit for the duration. Its not so cool to enter a hostile sector and you need to orientate on where you are first, while the enemy is allready shooting at you... And a simple autopilot would do wonders for those long trade routes. :)
The community is nice, people flying are helpfull, there is the occasional shoot-a-mining-unarmed-EC89-in-the-back type of person (he is on my hitlist BTW) but they seem to be far and between. So, I stay. and fly.
Yay. Tequila for Cpl. Hicks!
Or whatever your name is ingame...
Or whatever your name is ingame...
Congrats on the subscription. A few quick comments:
I won't go into the whole schpiel here, but the development decisions you see are largely due to necessity. Vendetta was originaly just a "tech demo" that a larger company was supposed to buy and develop. When that didn't happen, the current developers decided to make a go of building it in to a fully-fledged MMORPG. They've been rennovating the tech demo while keeping it playable 24/7 over the course of a few years. It's a unique approach that certainly has drawbacks, but it's been very interesting as well.
You should see the wiki about ships. I disagree that the Hornet performs similarly to the Vulture. Despite the greater firepower, most experienced pilots can tear up your Hornet with a Vulture due to the Vulture's slimmer profile, lower mass and greater manueverability.
I won't go into the whole schpiel here, but the development decisions you see are largely due to necessity. Vendetta was originaly just a "tech demo" that a larger company was supposed to buy and develop. When that didn't happen, the current developers decided to make a go of building it in to a fully-fledged MMORPG. They've been rennovating the tech demo while keeping it playable 24/7 over the course of a few years. It's a unique approach that certainly has drawbacks, but it's been very interesting as well.
You should see the wiki about ships. I disagree that the Hornet performs similarly to the Vulture. Despite the greater firepower, most experienced pilots can tear up your Hornet with a Vulture due to the Vulture's slimmer profile, lower mass and greater manueverability.
I hate bloggers.
Yah, Hornets suck for pretty much everything except racing. Too big of a target.
Oh, and killing Queens, I hear quad HX blasters do pretty well against shields. Too bad even Tycorp Assaults tear up Hornets.
Oh, and killing Queens, I hear quad HX blasters do pretty well against shields. Too bad even Tycorp Assaults tear up Hornets.
Welcome, Cpl. Hicks. Good to have ye onboard. Prepare to be ionized.
When you compare ships in VO, you have to consider not only all the stats of the ships (the hornet, in this case, weighs about 2 tons more than the vulture, which makes ALL the difference. The thrust/mass ratio difference between approx. 6000 kg to 220 N and approx. 4000 kg to 220 N makes for a VAST difference), but also the actual shape of the ships.
While all other stats can be read and compared, the shape of the ships, and how the mass distribution of weight over that shape affects your flying, is something that must be felt to be understood. Well, I don't quite understand it still, in spite of having... urhm... "felt" great many a ship ;-) , but at least I know what kind of ships that appeal to me.
Also, the shape of the ship not only affects its handling, but also how easy it is to hit. The valkyrie is superior to the best vulture in all aspects but one, if my memory isn't knee-deep in old earth tequila (I know who to blame), but the vulture's slim front profile makes it a much harder target to hit if you are good at presenting the front towards yer enemy. The valkyrie is a cybered-up potato, and is easier to put a few bolts through from any angle. (Well, used to be. The new valk might even things out a bit. Or, rather, makes things vastly unfair, which is even better.)
(Oh, and the hornet is 17 meters long, while the vulture is 12. So there is an difference in actual size as well, which, as Leber so succinctly put it, makes the hornet a much easier target).
When you compare ships in VO, you have to consider not only all the stats of the ships (the hornet, in this case, weighs about 2 tons more than the vulture, which makes ALL the difference. The thrust/mass ratio difference between approx. 6000 kg to 220 N and approx. 4000 kg to 220 N makes for a VAST difference), but also the actual shape of the ships.
While all other stats can be read and compared, the shape of the ships, and how the mass distribution of weight over that shape affects your flying, is something that must be felt to be understood. Well, I don't quite understand it still, in spite of having... urhm... "felt" great many a ship ;-) , but at least I know what kind of ships that appeal to me.
Also, the shape of the ship not only affects its handling, but also how easy it is to hit. The valkyrie is superior to the best vulture in all aspects but one, if my memory isn't knee-deep in old earth tequila (I know who to blame), but the vulture's slim front profile makes it a much harder target to hit if you are good at presenting the front towards yer enemy. The valkyrie is a cybered-up potato, and is easier to put a few bolts through from any angle. (Well, used to be. The new valk might even things out a bit. Or, rather, makes things vastly unfair, which is even better.)
(Oh, and the hornet is 17 meters long, while the vulture is 12. So there is an difference in actual size as well, which, as Leber so succinctly put it, makes the hornet a much easier target).