- 21 new missions added by members of the Player Contribution Corps!
These new missions tie together and further extend a number of
existing mission-trees. They also result in some interesting rewards,
including limited creation of capship components. Credit for this new
content goes primarily to Phaserlight for writing the new missions,
along with Meridian for extensive editing, as well as further testing
and feedback by Mr_Spuck and Darth Nihilus. Be sure to thank them for
their efforts in bringing new content to the game. If you've never
played any part of these mission trees before, you might start with
"Hazardous Site Investigation" (UIT), "Lesson Among the Stars" (Itani),
or "Errant Transports" (Serco). If you're interested in creating
missions for Vendetta Online, check out the "PCC" area of the Vendetta
Online website!

I don't have much to add, other than thank you devs for crafting this excellent game that's held my attention for over 12 years.

Thank you meridian, mr_spuck, and Darth Nihilus.

For Julie.

Thanks Phaser, Mr_Spuck, Meridian and Darth!

On a general note about missions, it would be nice if the mission updates remained on the screen for a bit longer

So far the mission is interesting. I can't wait to find out what happens next.

Thanks to all PCC members for their awesome work. Thank you Phaserlight, Meridian, mr_spuck and Darth Nihilus!

Will try out these new trees. Sounds very interesting.

Thank you, very much! :D

They decided to release this update under 1.8.350, instead of 1.8.349.1

Dunno when though.

I'm watching these awesome updates rolling out from my dark cave and I'm thinking that I should find those 10 spare dollars again

How difficult are the new missions compared to the old ones? (baseline: I failed missions like "Research Vessel Defense", "Axia must die" and "Impossible Mission". I don't think I ever finished a mission tree)

Difficulty is kind of a hard thing to quantitatively gauge, especially during the initial design phase; after so many years I have a pretty good idea of what I'm doing, but peer feedback is a very important part of this process. Difficulty can also be somewhat subjective: I would consider "Research Vessel Defense" and "Impossible and Overwhelming" to be well into the 'extremely difficult' end of the spectrum, "Axia Must Die" much less so. However, AMD doesn't necessarily give clear-cut directions on what is the best way to complete the mission, so it's probable that estimated difficulty will differ from one player to the next. One player may have no difficulty being given relatively little instruction on how to proceed but find large groups of high level bots nearly impossible to face, while for the next player the situation may be reversed. I can also tell you things like "this is a really hard mission" going in that may color your perception of the experience.

Also, bear in mind that these new missions are adding on to trees that are already in place, as Inc. mentions. Difficulty has to be judged in reference to what comes immediately before and after. "Research Vessel Defense" and "Axia Must Die" do not play an ancestral role in this new set of missions, but "Impossible and Overwhelming" does for a subset of the UIT.

It gets more complicated because there is more than one path through this tree, so what comes immediately before and after will be different depending on how fine your focus is; there are some missions that always come before others, but sometimes the order in which different branches of the tree are played is interchangeable, and different choices will lead to different sets of missions being presented.

These new missions are toward the later part of some trees, so they generally will be more difficult. It doesn't get any harder than "Impossible and Overwhelming"; that is what I would consider full-drive, triple-forte, to borrow a musical analogy (a note on completing IaO: there is more than one way to do it; seeing both capital ships destroyed is one option). I may have gone a little overboard with that particular mission. On the other hand, try starting a UIT alt, play "Hazardous Site Investigation", and in the follow-up mission choose the option that essentially declines the call to adventure and see what happens.

I believe a majority of players who uncover these new missions should find them enjoyable and not terminally difficult, with some challenging spots. I always try to design toward flow, without risking frustration; it's a balance between two extremes. One one end, players may feel coddled or 'on rails', at the other end players may feel mocked or abandoned. The medium way of requiring skill and remaining consistent is a difficult tone to strike, but I'm looking forward to seeing what people think.

Edit: I've gone on a long ramble here, but I want to make it clear that these missions belong to the PCC. I have a lot to say about them, but they would not be here were it not for the aid and attention of Meridian, and the playtesting support of Mr_spuck and Darth Nihilus. I also should recognize Pizzasgood for authoring parts of a tree that these new missions tie together.