*** Vendetta 1.7.21

- Missile effects now properly reduce detail with the
effects detail setting
- Added accomplishment ribbons for success against Queens &
Leviathans

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I'll make a newspost tomorrow (well, later today) to talk more about what's actually happening in this version, and where we're going with things like Ribbon accomplishments and the like. I'm too tired to do so right now.

Also: feedback on framerate improvements with swarm missiles (due to *second* effects detail fix) would be appreciated.

Looking forward to your newspost. Sleep well ;)

yay! new badges!

*ribbons!

We need a hive queen bus hunter badge or ribbon that we get another each time we kill a queen in a bus. kinda difficult now with the sheilds, youde probably need 10 or so of them.

I went into an empty sector and did a /toggleframerate. I had an average of 60fps at rest.

I then tried firing linked Chaos and Locust Swarms at myself. I kept the swarms in view for their entire flight. I tried this once at each effects setting and have recorded the results below.

Effect Setting = Off: fps reduction of roughly 1fps

Effect Setting = Low: fps reduction of roughly 2fps

Effect Setting = Med: fps reduction of up to 10fps

Effect Setting = High: fps reduction of up to 22fps

It looks like the settings work as advertised. Thanks!

It looks ok.
In a moderately busy sector i have around 30-45 fps.
With low effects setting, and with a dual set of swarms flying around, my fps drops to 24-28 fps. Thats still playable.
Thanks devs.

Took me awhile to write it, anyway:

http://www.vendetta-online.com/h/news.html

Also, glad to hear things have sped up with the effects detail settings :). We'll work more on improving the speeds, but that should at least make things livable in the meantime.

/me breaks open a champagne bottle.

You seemed to use "medals" and "ribbons" interchangeably, are they the same thing?

Nice, the swarm effects are much less of a hit now, Inc. I dunno what you did, but you did it good.

T-minus 3 weeks until nVidia 8800 GS goodness, anyway. w00t!

Nope. Ribbons are to be sort of representative placeholders for medals. The ribbons will be awarded for accomplishments, be displayed in the Character section under Accomplishments, and will be clickable. When you click each ribbon, a description of the accomplishment will be displayed and an image of the medal - if available yet - will be displayed. One big benefit is that the devs will be able to set up missions and contests without having to wait on the creation of badge graphics.

"The "Accomplishments" interface under the Character panel will change a bit, on the left side will be a series of ribbons, and when you click on the individual ribbon, it will show the full "award" on the right, along with a description of the award and so forth. This makes it much simpler for us to display a lot of different awards condensed in one place (in ribbon form). It also makes it a lot simpler for me to add new medals to the game, since it's possible for me to quickly make the ribbons and descriptions, and delay making the full-sized medal graphic until we have time. "

The whole ribbon/medal concept comes from what's actually used by the US military (and many militaries). For instance, at the link below you can see some of the various medals that are awarded, and their "ribbon" equivalents underneath. The "ribbon" is quite literally often the coloration of the actual ribbon on which the medal itself is hung. But it's used as a kind of "short form" to allow one to put one's military history on a coat, without having a lot of actual dangling medals.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inter-service_decorations_of_the_United_States_military

Actually pinning the medals themselves on there is usually reserved for full dress uniform:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medals

We're using the same concept, and adapting it to our own needs. Ribbons are a lot quicker for me to make than designing unique medals (although I currently intend for them to all have full "medal" equivalents in due course). It also lets us put a lot of awards in one place without them taking up a great deal of screenspace.

Levi kills do not show up at all in the character stats, not sure how many I need for a ribbon but I've yet to get any sign. As for the queen ribbon, I had 1 to start at 98 queens last night, but received the other 2 after killing my 100th queen. Is this supposed to happen? Right now I have 113/500 queen kills and 3 Hive Queen Hunter ribbons.

Drazed: There's a known implementation problem with the way those ribbons are handed out right now. They're supposed to replace one another, but they don't yet. Also, Levi kills should work, but you need 10 to get a ribbon right now. The numbers for various ribbons are still in flux, which is why I haven't posted any requirements yet. The 10/25/100/500 thing will probably remain for Queens. As for why you had two more ribbons suddenly appear, that would be because addition of the "100" ribbon triggered the above-mentioned implementation issue. We should have that fixed next week.

Aaah that makes more sense. Thanks Inc/Whistler

intersting ... I have 295 right now and it shows 1. so I have to get 500 to get the other two or will it skip the one for 100?

By the time you make it to 500, we will have fixed the problem, and it'll just be the one ribbon at a time :). (that's how it's supposed to work, for that one.. each ribbon replaces the last).

that's what you think! :P

EDIT: hey I got the first 3 thingies after one kill now

So is that how PK medals will work too? I'll only have the 500 one once this is fixed? :(