Hi.As a new and hooked player im intensively trying to learn all ins and outs of this game.Ive asked this many times online on various channels and everyone says differently. My questions is what ships are available to what factions, what ships are not, and everything else new people should know about this like tips and such. For example some people say a UIT cant get the SkyProm, some say with enough faction standing you can. Some say the Boarder Guardian Warthog is only available to UIT and non UIT cant get it no matter the standing while others say its available to everyone.Maybe here I will get this cleared up once and for all?This question remains unanswered for days now.. please help, thanks.

Your choice of faction determines only 5 things:

- Your default standings on character creation
- Your chat colour
- Who's chatter you see on channel 11 (always your own faction)
- What military you are able to fight for in deneb
- Where you go if you are homed in a station but have tempKOS or get KOS status with that faction and then die and still have good standing with your home nation.

Those are the only differences. A UIT may not be able to purchase the SkyProm or the Border Guardian by default, but they can earn the standings to purchase either ship (albeit not at the same time).

Thank you.

A few other minor things TRS missed: If you want to be able to buy the Neutron Blaster MkIII directly from stations, you have to be either Serco or Itani, and your side has to win "Capture the Cargo". UIT never get to buy them from the station, no matter what. Nothing stops you from buying them from other players though, and it's not really an impressive weapon anyway.

The main other thing he missed is that members of the same nation who are in good standing and within one of their nation's capital systems cannot inflict damage to each other. If one of them is hated by the nation, or a foreigner, they can both hurt each other normally.

There's also a slightly higher penalty for killing people in their own space when you are a foreigner, but it's a small enough difference that I've never actually noticed it.

Some missions might only appear for members of particular nations, but when that happens there is probably an equivalent mission for the other nations, especially if the reward for the mission is some significant item or whatever. I'm not aware of any exceptions to that, currently.

Most missions don't care about your heritage, however, preferring to discriminate by faction standing instead, if they do at all.

A player just told me UIT role is weapon supplying in the Itani and Serco war.Does that mean there are weapons which can only be bought in UIT space and perhaps by UIT only?

No, minus the Axia Accelerated Positron blaster, which is available from Axia stations. You'll of course need good standing with Axia to buy them.

If you haven't read the wiki yet, check it out. Lots of good info.
http://www.vo-wiki.com

Edit:
The AAP isn't exclusive to UIT only, matter of fact nothing is UIT exclusive.

Yeah, that's how most UITs makes their living. Selling weapons like a prostitute sells her body.
But anyways, if you wanna get into the UIT RP thing, I guess you could do cargo runs for various players.

So why is it that they sell weapons to players?Why doesnt everyone just buy weapons in their own space? That was the reason why I assumed their stores have better ones.

There's very little difference between each major faction in terms of how the game treats it shatterdome, they're talking about things from a roleplay perspective, in contrast to actual game mechanics. T

he game mechanics often behave in a way that doesn't make sense from a roleplay perspective; for instance a UIT national can be punished by the faction system for destroying a serco originating pirate in UIT territory.

The game mechanics also ignore the part of the backstory where the UIT supply weapons for both the Itani and Serco; weapons can be purchased anywhere regardless of your nation or role as long as you meet the requirements for the specific station you want to purchase them from.

Faction standing is a more important determining factor in gameplay than nation affiliation right now:

A Serco with high Itani standing would fare better in Itani space than an Itani with low Itani standing, and an Itani with high Serco standing would fare better in Serco space than a Serco with low Serco standing.

However, the game is set up such that the UIT are in a position to supply to both sides in a number of cases, especially when a new character is just starting out. I've set up a number of missions with this exact mechanic in mind (Spice Run, for example) and a recent, very large mission tree holds the alleged weapons dealings of the UIT as a revolving plot device.

"ignore" might be too strong of a word, especially when myself and others have spent years working on illuminating parts of Vendetta's rich backstory (including the part TRS mentions) in game. I understand TRS' point is that there are no items that are limited in purchase by one's nationality, but I would counter that in the opening game faction standing is a significant objective-obstacle such that choice of nationality provides effective access to certain items that would not otherwise be feasibly attainable.

A UIT also holds an aspect of neutrality in weekly Capture the Cargo cycles in that s/he can help either side at whim, and in the Deneb War at first as s/he may join either the Serco or the Itani military.

There are many missions that are nation-specific. Pizzasgood makes a good point that most missions don't care about your nationality, only your standing, and there usually are equivalent missions for opposing sides, etc. However, there are some missions that you will never see as a UIT, and there are some missions that you will only see as an Itani, a Serco, or a UIT. They do exist.

Not all weapons are available everywhere; if you travel to Corvus at first, you won't be able to buy most of the cool stuff you would be able to otherwise because you don't begin with high Corvus faction standing.

Basically, I just wanted to put out my opinion that VO is very strong in the horizontal progression department, but the opening game is not totally symmetric and there are nation-specific opportunities both early and later on. You won't find it by looking at the wiki, and it's not obvious in game, either.

As you've gathered by now, Vendetta tends to be text-heavier than other MMOs, and it presents this right up front in the 'Create a New Character' screen. Someone who reads through these descriptions will probably end up choosing the right nation, if there is one, for whatever disposition s/he carries.

P.S. I chose my main character's nationality during alpha, before each side was named; to me it was just about being on 'team Gold', nothing more (actually, this isn't even true; the 'nation-specials' were limited in purchase to each nation back then. I picked Gold for the color, and then the fact I had access to a nation-special ship validated my choice in a retroactive way). Everything that came afterward has been pure emergence, from a player's perspective.

Something that TRS and Pizzasgood missed:

The financial reward for turning in Capture The Cargo purified xith is more for a UIT character, than otherwise.

That's true, although it's still not enough to warrant the trip to dau, lol.

Guys, what about the equipment that says "faction personnel with sufficient standing only"? Does that just means you need to raise the standing or you also have to be of that faction?

it means your standing with that faction is insufficient to buy the item