For some of you newer people you may not recognize all the snazzy symbols on the stations and signs. These are not just pictures however they are a language made by Guild Software's Waylon. They were originally called Waylonics because of that, but the name changed to GTS or Galactic Trade Standard.

If you need help figuring out what they say, look in http://vendetta-online.com/manual/manual/GTS.html

Make that Galactic Trade Standard.

-Eloi

bah you people and your spelling things correctly.

pfft speling thigns corectlly is ovreated

Anyone else think the symbol for "heavy ship" looks like the Ragnarok from the top?

"fast" looks like a Cent from the top, and "weapon" looks like an Uzi from the side.

Repair looks like a Maud.

Will all this stuff be in the printed manual in the box?

The extra symbol set is good, but I've noticed that a lot of the ingame strings are just the A-Z set. Is there any usefulness what so ever to have these in GTS? (Or rather to let GTS be a different looking english)

I can understand not wanting to make it english, but since the game is in said language in the first place..

"Is there any usefulness what so ever to have these in GTS?"

It looks cool. :P

Yes, but what does it say? Golly gee, here's my home station is I'm not quite sure if that's "Help wanted", "Toilet in the back, key inside" or "We eat you for lunch" advertised.. ;-) It's easier to get into the game if you don't have to learn a new alphabet.

The billboards are like flavor text on trading card games; they are unnecessary for basic gameplay yet add a lot of atmosphere and mystique to the game universe. So spend five minutes and find out what they say. If you don't want to spend the time, fine, it won't interfere with the Vendetta PvP action we all know and love.

Moofed: You're missing the point. To take your example of flavour texts, if you had to have a reference just to read them, you wouldn't. Hence, flavour lost..

kriss in this case the signs purpose is served better by their visual effect than the actual semantic content of what they say. If they were written in english it would detract from the atmosphere because it would be read and interpreted instead of just thought of as ambient non-earth language which was visually pleasing.

That's where I don't see how not being able to read texts that's supposedly the written lingua de franco adds to the atmosphere.

If none of the players can read what the stations - or signs - say, where's the added value? The visual effect - a neon sign - is evident no matter if you can read the text or not. Likewise, the non-AtoZ parts of the GTS make sense and add to the visuals, imo. My only gripe is - still - A-Z.

If the point would have been to illustrate a space pilot stuck in a godknowswhere alien part of space, yes, there is a meaning in obfuscated text. As the supposedly universal means of communication, I just don't see the benefit of separating the character, who supposedly can read it and the player, who can't on the issue - especially since all other in-game text is in english.

That said, I'm pretty much done debating the subject. If your outlook ends shortly after "it looks cool", we'll just have to agree to disagree since, if you read the above, that's not my problem with it. At all.

I can read it.

The A-Z alphabet in GTS is phonetic. Pretty much all the signs that use it are simply spelling out names of things, not English words. It would look pretty silly to see <pictogram for welcome><to>Tor<large ship><store>, since "Tor" wouldn't mean anything to you if you could read it but not the pictograms.

If you study the GTS for a week or so you can easily learn to read it.

How many people have actually deciphered what the side of more than 3 stations say in the universe though? I sure haven't.

oh, and I just found out this is the 25,500th post in the General thread... booyah.

Ok, Verasi L15. Big neon on the bottom, by the Red 'japan flag' thing. I think it says this:

'No Die Pilot With VUTRA'

What are they talking about? Is Vutra some special product you can rub on your ship to make it invulnerable?