I am considering purchasing an account with Vendetta Online, however I have a few questions :

A.How is the end game? After you level up is there anything to do?
B.How many players are online on average?
C.In the FAQ, it is mentioned that the source will not be open due to the possibility of selling the game out to a company. If this does happen for some reason (which I hope it doesn't), will the Linux Port continue to be maintained?

Thanks

You will not regret trying it out. 8h free demo is available.

A. There is no endgame. There are no max levels. It goes on and on. There is plenty to do once you level to your satisfaction and you have the hardware you want. Trading, mining, join a guild, pvp, do missions, hunt evil bots, be a spy, medic or whatever you like to do. It is an open universe and you can do whatever u like.

B. hm around 70 to 120 players? You can check the active players page.

C. A dev needs to answer this, but I would think they wouldnt give up control of their beloved Vendetta Online, or drop support for Linux.

M. Duncan

i can answer A and B for you, C i don't know about. The great thing about vendetta is that the best part of the game comes once u get some decent levels and are able to get most equipment. At this point, you can concentrate on PvP which is in my opinion the best part of the game and in fact what the game was designed to revolve around. This means that there is always something fun to do whether its CtC (Capture the cargo) or just go battle with other players. So the game does not plateau once u finish leveling to your desire, there's still plenty of fun things to do. The average ammount of players online I believe to be usually around 70 or so around peak hours at the moment. Someone correct me if I'm wrong on this because I'm not exactly sure. Other than that, I strongly encourage you to buy an account! The more people that play this game, the better it will become for all of us. See you in game!

The Linux port will be maintained as long as any of the other ports are maintained. Open/closed source has nothing to do with that.

I think what the open-source thing means is that they were thinkign of licensing the engine to other companies for use in other games. That didn't really pan out...

A. End-Game is the same as the Beginning-Game with better weapons. What people normally associate with "end game" content you won't find here. There are no player controlled space stations, trade wars, uber rare loot or all powerful alien races to conquer. At this point the game is lacking depth but has a lot of potential and, in all fairness to the developers, new content is constantly being planned and added.

To be perfectly honest even at its current stage of development the game has sucked me in. You won't find another twitch based multiplayer space game that can compete with Vendetta. The developers are constantly listening to ideas and cranking out content and the player base seems to be both mature and friendly (with the exception of Dashing II, I hate you for KSing my queen last night).

B. Peak times you can see anywhere from 100-150 players online. There seems to be a constant flow of around 30-40 players online any other time.

C. Was answered above.

heh, the *entire* game is the end game - in fact, as far as i can tell, much of the early and mid game involves learning the necessary skills to play and then level-grinding until you have access to the necessary equipment to participate in a competitive fashion. VO is moderately fun during that initial period (there's a period of "wow! this is really nifty!" at the beginning which gradually wears off), but from what i hear, the real fun doesn't start until you have easy access to the higher-level weapons and ships.

Vendetta's very different from other MMOs in that the fun really starts when you gain skill, not when your character gains enough XP. At a very low level you have access to sufficient equipment to be very competitive, the fun starts when you learn to use it well enough.

Its true, my current choice of ship is the cent mk 2, I have licences that let me aquire all but one ship in the game, and faction standings meaning I cannot get others...

...but even if I had all the req's (like some players do) there is always more added, its an ever evolving universe... It keeps us on our toes =D

Yeah, a level 2/2/2/1/0 pilot is VERY competitive, equipment wise.

Of course, other than PvP (which is what this game is geared towards), there are plenty of other "statistics" goal to chase after.

softy2 said:

> Yeah, a level 2/2/2/1/0 pilot is VERY competitive, equipment wise.

well, ship-wise, yes. weapons and battery, no. of course, you have access to ships that'll let you dodge, but you have to be really good to kill anyone with a HX-gun. :-)

At 2/2/2/1/0, you won't have access to all the very best equipment most places, but there is a pirate black-market that will sell you equipment at lower license levels than everywhere else, so you can indeed be competitive at those levels. But be aware, black-market goods are VERY expensive; and the pirate black-market is (of course) deep in pirate space, so it will be a more dangerous area.

@softy2: maybe i'm just not thinking straight. would you mind describing a loadout that a 2/2/2/1/0 pilot might use that would be competitive?

I don't know what softy2 had in mind, but an IBG centurion with double Orion or TPG phase blasters is more than decent. You should have a heavy battery at Corvus at those levels (perhaps even a fast charge or a neutron blaster?).

Edit: one may argue that the above requires good standing with factions and therefore imply more than trade 1. Anyway a centurion MkII with a phase blaster would already be quite dangerous in the hands of the players who posted above.

yeah, i had figured the answer would be something along those lines. i would submit that any loadout that requires advanced standing with factions is not a good one to recommend to a newbie.

in addition, just because $VET can wreak havoc with a given loadout doesn't mean that it's useful to a newbie. never mind that to a newbie who doesn't have tons of cash in the bank an excursion to Corvus is a significant expenditure of both time and money. it's difficult to put in the hours of practice and the many deaths necessary to build up good combat skills if every death carrys with it a long trip to grey space and a trade mission or two to scrape together the cash.

i'm not saying that this state of affairs is necessarily bad; frankly, my ideal solution would involve a larger population of users who weren't at high license levels, so that a low-level duelist would have better opportunities to find opponents who weren't flying Proms or IBG Cents.

my point is simply that it's a bit misleading to tell newbies that it'll be a matter of hours before they're able to jump in and participate in a meaningful way in all this high-level fun stuff that people talk about on these forums. that hasn't been my experience.

This is not the point, hakamadare. People were saying to damicatz: 'leveling up is not necessary to have fun, gaining skills is'. The good equipment available at 2/2/2/1/0 is hard evidence of that. No one is saying that a new player will become a top player in a few hours.

damicatz, my advice would be: do not hesitate to take a good mentor to learn the basics of the flight and combat. It is always better to learn things the good way, instead of having to relearn them after you played too much time alone. Trust me, I know a bit about that :) Have fun!

Thanks for all the replies. I liked what I saw in the trial so I ended up buying an account here.

I'm not new to space sims, I've played Freelancer, Tie Fighter, X-Wing, Free Space and so on. Is there anything here that I should know about in regards to differences between the flight model of this game and other space shooters?

It's probably easier to describe the differences between VO's flight model & Newtonian physics, as most space sims have at least subtly different models.

In Newtonian physics, you would accellerate indefinitly as long as thrust was being applied to your ship; as super-high velocity's were determined to be detrimental to gameplay, so a maximum speed was applied. What the max speed is depends on your ship, anywere between 45 m/s & 70 m/s standard flight, or 150 m/s & 240 m/s turboing. The max speed also changes how acceleration works, in Newtonian physics a constant force would provide a constant acceleration (a=F/m), but in VO, as your ship approaches its max speed your acceleration approaches 0, so you accelerate less the faster you're going. Also note that the number displayed on the ship stats page do not directly reflect the numbers used by the game engine, the thrust in Newtons displayed is actually one-thousandth the value used by the game engine, eventually the unit displayed may be changed from N to kN, which would be what the game engine uses.

Turbo works like so: all engine thrust is directed straight behind your ship, so you are unable to turn while turboing. Also, in Newtonian physics once you have reached a certain speed, if you stop applying a force you will remain at that speed; with turbo in VO that is not the case, you must continue to apply turbo thrust to maintain your turbo velocity, if you stop turboing, you will rapidly drop to your none-turbo max speed.

That's about all I can think of off the top of my head right now. Others can probably add more.

Hakamedere : Yeah, at 2/2/2/1/0 you can fly an IBG with phasers and medium battery (not XGX though, because by the time you build up faction for it you'll be more than trade 2 =P). With phasers, you don't need a heavy battery for it.

That's a 3200kg insane ship with 220N thrust. I flew this thing in an alt for a while, and it literally kill light fighters (nice to see the +500,+400 combat...). It has too little firepower for heavier targets though, but that's probably because i don't have the patience to wear down a prom with it.

Also, a vult is pretty decent too, and can probably hold itself not too shabbily.

I am not suggesting that a new player can jump in and fight like a pro. But you can give a new player the best equipment, and they'll still die to weaker ships. The point is that, this game is about player skills, and does not depend on leveling for a player to be good in it.

EDIT : BY the way Damicatz, if you are looking for some one to help you out in playing PVP in this game, just send a message to any Black Lance member (BL), we'll all be happy to help out. We are kinda want to encourage more PVP in the game. (It's not [BL.], it's [BL], watch that period. Hehe, shame on whoever that ripped off our copyright).

ok, fair enough. i think i'll try that combination out myself at some point, once i get around to building Itani standing. i haven't particularly enjoyed flying zippy little ships before, but perhaps this one will be different.