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A Real FAQ
Okay, I've had about enough of stupid questions, and I'd love to just tell newbies where to find the FAQ. Sure, we have one, and it's great for figuring out who Guild is and where you're going with Vendetta but gameplay wise, it sucks. A FAQ is for holding questions that are Frequently Asked, and I doubt that questions about shaders or hosting one's own server are nearly as frequently asked as some of those I'll put in here. Feel free to respond to this, and I'll amend the post as necessary.
Q) What nation should I play?
It depends on your character. Read below for information on the different nations of origin. Some would say that nation shouldn't matter, and we look serious and nod while they're talking then burst out laughing when they leave the room. Nation may not be as immediately evident in its importance as faction alignment, but in the end it defines your character no matter which way your life may lead.
Itani are a scientifically wise, militarily advanced and largely law-abiding democratic society. They tend towards excessive ego. At the command of their most lauded pilots is the Valkyrie Space Superiority Fighter. This ship is unequaled in maneuverability and acceleration, giving the pilot a distinct edge in one-to-one combat.
Serco are warriors fond of the tactics of overwhelming force and individual survivability. Their attitude towards ships and warriors is that if you can hit it with a sledgehammer and see no ill effect, it's worthy to bring into battle. They wish a unified front in their holy war against the Itani, but are plagued by the pirates that fly their flag in a seeming mockery of the order they crave. The Serco created the heavily armored Prometheus fighter bomber to roll through groups of enemies guns blazing, without slowing down. This tactic works admirably in fleets, but can lead to problems when taking on more maneuverable fighters.
The Neutral Territories are actually not a nation at all but instead a loose confederation of traders, outcasts, refugees and more than a few pirates. They are governed by a nominally representative but intrinsically corrupt senate where those with the most power or the most money routinely make laws that citizens follow if they are convenient at the moment. The nation's unique ship is the Maurauder, a fast, well-armed and tough small freighter with enough space to haul any load asked of it.
Choose carefully, as it takes more time and work than most can spare to build up a character then start again if decide you don't like how your affiliation has turned out.
Q) How do I dock?
A) Move into an entrance docking bay. There are two types of docking bays: entrances and exits. Entrances are marked with a set of flashing blue arrows pointing at them. Exits have a blue glowing field over them that is impenetrable from the outside. Fly into an entrance dock and press the activate key, which is return by default.
Q) How do I get all the cool stuff that <someone else> has?
A) You have to work at it, accepting and completing missions picked up at the missions tab of the station. Completing missions gives you experience points in one of the four following areas:
Combat
Light Weapons
Heavy Weapons
Trading
Once you acquire the required amount of points, as shown on the character information screen you pull up by pressing K, it will tell you that you have enough points for a new license level. Once you get that message, finish whatever mission you're doing, head into one of your nation's home stations and take the License Test mission. This mission will cost you a sum of credits equal to the number of points you just achieved. For example, your first license requires 2000 points in the area to upgrade along with 2000 credits. The next level takes a 7500 more points (for a total of 9500) and 9500 credits to upgrade. No cash? No license.
Q) How do I get all the cool stuff that a1k0n has?
A) You can't. A1k0n cheats. Why? Because he's a developer of the game, and he can.
Q) Why can't I dock my Itani bus in Sector 2? (a.k.a. why can't I dock my Serco bus in Sector 1?)
Because you're an Itani, and Sectors 12 and 2 are Serco space. The Serco are at war with the Itani over God only knows what. However, they're fair, and if you have restrained yourself from destroying Serco pilots or generally being a dick they'll let you dock if you get on their good side by blasting a pirate or two. They don't trust you enough to give you missions yet, but at least you can dock in, repair and avail yourself of the local ale houses.
Q) How do I talk to the mission Computer?
A) Actually, there's more than one mission computer. In fact, there's one mission computer in every sector and the one that talks to you is whichever one is closest. Thus, if you want to have a meaningful conversation with the mission computer, you have to talk to the one in your sector. Messaging a mission computer works like this:
/msg "*mission Computer #" hello!
where # is the number of your current location and hello! can be anything you want to say. The response will be the same and no amount of goading or insulting it will get a different reply.
Q) How do I bind my weapons?
A) Well, first off it's got to be done in the station, under the Weapon Setup (or some such) tab. Primary group weapons fire when you click your left mouse button, secondary when you press the right button and tertriary when you press the C key. While it's possible to assign weapons to the second entry in a group, this requires some frantic juggling with the number keys, so until a more intuitive system is introduced, I suggest sticking with the first entry in each group. To bind, click the group you wish to set up, then click the weapons you wish to bind to that group in the left side of the panel. For example:
Let's say you've got a Warthog. Before this point, your ships will only have one gun, so binding is automatic and foolproof.
The Warthog has a large and a small weapons port. When the computer lays out default bindings, it just slaps down assignments in the first open slot on the list. This means that by default you'd have to toggle back and forth between Primary Weapon 1 and 2 with the number keys, and this sucks. Instead, let's bind a Stingray guided missile (the first heavy weapon available) to the right click (group 2) and a Phased Blaster to the left click (group 1).
Buy and install the weapons on the ship (I'll add an entry on this later), then click Primary Fire's first listing. You'll see that the Phased Blaster is already assigned. Whoopee, let's skip to the Stingrays. Before we do that, however, click the second Primary Fire listing. As I explained earlier, the game has gone ahead and bound the stingrays to the second entry in Primary Fire. Since this could lead to a confusing situation when frantically mashing keys, let's unbind it from Primary 2. Make sure everything's deselected (white), and click the Apply button to make it happen. Now, click the first entry under Secondary Fire, make sure the Stingrays are selected (red), press Apply, and go shoot at stuff!
Q) What are groups, and how do I make/join one?
A) Groups are sets of players that associate with each other and have their own chat prompt. Members of a group in the same sector will be able to see each others' health on their HUDs.
To use this feature, you first need to create the group. To do this, get a regular chat prompt and type
/group create
After this, you need to invite players to your group. This is done much in the same way as creating a group, except this time type
/group invite "player name"
You can omit the quotes if their name is one word, but if there's a space in it, you have to put it in quotes to let the console know that all of those words are the player's name.
To chat with players in your group, type
/say_group blah
Where blah is whatever you wanted to share with your little buddies.
When you're done with the group, type
/group leave
Q) How do I do group missions?
A) Group missions work much the way regular combat missions do. As of yet there aren't any group cargo missions. To go bot-hunting, get a group of people, then go get a mission from the station like normal. The mission computer will now hand you a list of bots to kill. The player who gets the mission determines the difficulty of the bots assigned, so group with players of similar skill level.
Q) What nation should I play?
It depends on your character. Read below for information on the different nations of origin. Some would say that nation shouldn't matter, and we look serious and nod while they're talking then burst out laughing when they leave the room. Nation may not be as immediately evident in its importance as faction alignment, but in the end it defines your character no matter which way your life may lead.
Itani are a scientifically wise, militarily advanced and largely law-abiding democratic society. They tend towards excessive ego. At the command of their most lauded pilots is the Valkyrie Space Superiority Fighter. This ship is unequaled in maneuverability and acceleration, giving the pilot a distinct edge in one-to-one combat.
Serco are warriors fond of the tactics of overwhelming force and individual survivability. Their attitude towards ships and warriors is that if you can hit it with a sledgehammer and see no ill effect, it's worthy to bring into battle. They wish a unified front in their holy war against the Itani, but are plagued by the pirates that fly their flag in a seeming mockery of the order they crave. The Serco created the heavily armored Prometheus fighter bomber to roll through groups of enemies guns blazing, without slowing down. This tactic works admirably in fleets, but can lead to problems when taking on more maneuverable fighters.
The Neutral Territories are actually not a nation at all but instead a loose confederation of traders, outcasts, refugees and more than a few pirates. They are governed by a nominally representative but intrinsically corrupt senate where those with the most power or the most money routinely make laws that citizens follow if they are convenient at the moment. The nation's unique ship is the Maurauder, a fast, well-armed and tough small freighter with enough space to haul any load asked of it.
Choose carefully, as it takes more time and work than most can spare to build up a character then start again if decide you don't like how your affiliation has turned out.
Q) How do I dock?
A) Move into an entrance docking bay. There are two types of docking bays: entrances and exits. Entrances are marked with a set of flashing blue arrows pointing at them. Exits have a blue glowing field over them that is impenetrable from the outside. Fly into an entrance dock and press the activate key, which is return by default.
Q) How do I get all the cool stuff that <someone else> has?
A) You have to work at it, accepting and completing missions picked up at the missions tab of the station. Completing missions gives you experience points in one of the four following areas:
Combat
Light Weapons
Heavy Weapons
Trading
Once you acquire the required amount of points, as shown on the character information screen you pull up by pressing K, it will tell you that you have enough points for a new license level. Once you get that message, finish whatever mission you're doing, head into one of your nation's home stations and take the License Test mission. This mission will cost you a sum of credits equal to the number of points you just achieved. For example, your first license requires 2000 points in the area to upgrade along with 2000 credits. The next level takes a 7500 more points (for a total of 9500) and 9500 credits to upgrade. No cash? No license.
Q) How do I get all the cool stuff that a1k0n has?
A) You can't. A1k0n cheats. Why? Because he's a developer of the game, and he can.
Q) Why can't I dock my Itani bus in Sector 2? (a.k.a. why can't I dock my Serco bus in Sector 1?)
Because you're an Itani, and Sectors 12 and 2 are Serco space. The Serco are at war with the Itani over God only knows what. However, they're fair, and if you have restrained yourself from destroying Serco pilots or generally being a dick they'll let you dock if you get on their good side by blasting a pirate or two. They don't trust you enough to give you missions yet, but at least you can dock in, repair and avail yourself of the local ale houses.
Q) How do I talk to the mission Computer?
A) Actually, there's more than one mission computer. In fact, there's one mission computer in every sector and the one that talks to you is whichever one is closest. Thus, if you want to have a meaningful conversation with the mission computer, you have to talk to the one in your sector. Messaging a mission computer works like this:
/msg "*mission Computer #" hello!
where # is the number of your current location and hello! can be anything you want to say. The response will be the same and no amount of goading or insulting it will get a different reply.
Q) How do I bind my weapons?
A) Well, first off it's got to be done in the station, under the Weapon Setup (or some such) tab. Primary group weapons fire when you click your left mouse button, secondary when you press the right button and tertriary when you press the C key. While it's possible to assign weapons to the second entry in a group, this requires some frantic juggling with the number keys, so until a more intuitive system is introduced, I suggest sticking with the first entry in each group. To bind, click the group you wish to set up, then click the weapons you wish to bind to that group in the left side of the panel. For example:
Let's say you've got a Warthog. Before this point, your ships will only have one gun, so binding is automatic and foolproof.
The Warthog has a large and a small weapons port. When the computer lays out default bindings, it just slaps down assignments in the first open slot on the list. This means that by default you'd have to toggle back and forth between Primary Weapon 1 and 2 with the number keys, and this sucks. Instead, let's bind a Stingray guided missile (the first heavy weapon available) to the right click (group 2) and a Phased Blaster to the left click (group 1).
Buy and install the weapons on the ship (I'll add an entry on this later), then click Primary Fire's first listing. You'll see that the Phased Blaster is already assigned. Whoopee, let's skip to the Stingrays. Before we do that, however, click the second Primary Fire listing. As I explained earlier, the game has gone ahead and bound the stingrays to the second entry in Primary Fire. Since this could lead to a confusing situation when frantically mashing keys, let's unbind it from Primary 2. Make sure everything's deselected (white), and click the Apply button to make it happen. Now, click the first entry under Secondary Fire, make sure the Stingrays are selected (red), press Apply, and go shoot at stuff!
Q) What are groups, and how do I make/join one?
A) Groups are sets of players that associate with each other and have their own chat prompt. Members of a group in the same sector will be able to see each others' health on their HUDs.
To use this feature, you first need to create the group. To do this, get a regular chat prompt and type
/group create
After this, you need to invite players to your group. This is done much in the same way as creating a group, except this time type
/group invite "player name"
You can omit the quotes if their name is one word, but if there's a space in it, you have to put it in quotes to let the console know that all of those words are the player's name.
To chat with players in your group, type
/say_group blah
Where blah is whatever you wanted to share with your little buddies.
When you're done with the group, type
/group leave
Q) How do I do group missions?
A) Group missions work much the way regular combat missions do. As of yet there aren't any group cargo missions. To go bot-hunting, get a group of people, then go get a mission from the station like normal. The mission computer will now hand you a list of bots to kill. The player who gets the mission determines the difficulty of the bots assigned, so group with players of similar skill level.
It'd be nice. Why don't you just make one and email it to them.
This could be front page material so all the newbies would quit asking the same question a thousand times daily. Or at least some type of sticky note post on the forums. I mean occasionally I'd try to help answer these frequently asked questions but sometimes it can be overwhelming when you have to do it a hundred times a day or the newbie just doesn't listen the first time. Admitedly I was confused also as to how to use the mission bot and get licenses when I first got 3.4. Well... at the very least we'll be seeing better interfaces in the future to help avoid typing obscure console commands, as well as having better menu items that are more self explanatory.
Heh, you wouldnt believe how much time I spent trying to find information on Vendetta on Sourceforge. I dont see why Vendetta's even on there, since it's not open-source...
<edit> it's not there anymore. was about a year and a half ago though. doh.
<edit> it's not there anymore. was about a year and a half ago though. doh.
The most asked question I keep hearing is "How do I chat with the local mission computer?".
And then people respond with either:
A) /msg "*Mission Computer #" Where # is the current sector you're in.
B) Press tab in an empty chat input if it last messaged you.
The worst part is when someone told them to do answer A and then someone yells answer B out.
And then people respond with either:
A) /msg "*Mission Computer #" Where # is the current sector you're in.
B) Press tab in an empty chat input if it last messaged you.
The worst part is when someone told them to do answer A and then someone yells answer B out.
Added mission bot conversation to the list.
I think that these topics are better addressed with an in-game tutorial, and the like, that automatically comes up for newbies. Most of them won't *read* the FAQ anyway, that much is obvious from all the people who ask "Will Vendetta be Pay to Play" and.. various other questions that have already been answered.
An in-game mechanism would be a better way of dealing with in-game problems. But, by all means, please keep track of the questions that are commonly asked, and post them on here or send us emails or whatever. If we know what new-user problems are most common, we can come up with better ways of informing people.
An in-game mechanism would be a better way of dealing with in-game problems. But, by all means, please keep track of the questions that are commonly asked, and post them on here or send us emails or whatever. If we know what new-user problems are most common, we can come up with better ways of informing people.
Since new playtester signups are closed, perhaps we'll be able to educate our current crop of noobs and reduce the amount of questions for now.
Thanks for the directions ctishman!
You're welcome, Moxie!
Edit: added weapon binding tutorial.
Edit: added weapon binding tutorial.
great guide for the nice crop of noobs
I often get this question: "how do you do group missions?"
also would be nice to tell n00bs about tab completion and how it works
I often get this question: "how do you do group missions?"
also would be nice to tell n00bs about tab completion and how it works
Got it. Thanks again. Remember, no blowing up Moms while they're innocently wandering around, gawking at the universe.
Muah... Hey, if we kill you, do we get hunted down by the devs? :D
Edit: Added groups and group missions
ctishman, I'm saving all of this great info you've put together. It's going to be a terrific resource for all of the other newbies down the road too I'm sure.
Blue Skies
Blue Skies