hello, i have been playing Vendetta for about a month now. one thing that i think would be very helpful to the game is making it less obvious to new players. for we UIT for example there would be only a full map of dau to start. new map segments would only be unlocked by exploration, or purchace of the information from players or stations. for Serco and Itani the same rules would apply. i am not sure how to do the unaligned systems maybe they are only at all found by exploration since no information is on the maps for them anyway.

i suggest this because i think even if the map is mostly unchanging exploring it could help increase the rpg part of Vendetta and also give one more important level of play to earn for new players rather than just have it handed to them. also it would encourage development inside the starting nation and make for a stronger national identity. maybe the removal of a common channel would help to.

one problem could be the way missions and routes now work. i think a good fix would just be to show up a unknown place by system location but only with a ring or dot, no path shown. this would make long trade or escort missions less mindless and more attention demanding.

would this be hard to do in a future update?

I like this idea. I would love to be able to jump through a wh not knowing where it's leading or what I'll find.

I look forward to a day soon(tm) to come when the universe gets bigger and the links between systems get more complex. The universe as we know it now is too well known to try to hide it from everyone. (I don't thing the current map can be just thrown away.) Besides, I wouldn't put in the time to 'explore' it because I already know what's generally there. However I think that new wormholes should eventually be added without telling anyone and that from then on new systems should be revealed only as people explore them...or buy the info from others like you mentioned. (Let there be no stations in the new systems, except maybe a couple from rouge-ish groups like the Akanese. Let guilds/individual players build their own stations there.)

I trust that plans for something along this line already exist and that things are moving toward it. I will enjoy what I have to work with as I wait patiently for it.

i agree that for we who already know the map would just be a little silly. but new people sign up everyday and they would like it better i think if the map had to be discovered. i also think keeping the current map and layout is fine as long as it has to be found out. so little work is needed.

The devs already have a plan. What we have now is only the core systems. With the release of the much-awaited Expansion, there will be many new systems made that aren't on the map, that are more dangerous, and that (presumably) will be open to Exploration and settlement. By players. Get Incarnate to talk to you about it. He's the man with the plan.

It would definately be silly to have every system hidden until you personally go there or buy a map. Your idea sounds a lot like EV. Not knowing the map in EV was more annoying than immersive.

Here's why it makes more sense to have the entire known universe (at least where the systems are and known wormholes). Even today, how much does a US road atlas or even a world map cost? I got one at Barnes & Noble for $10. I didn't even need to do that, either, because I can go to MapQuest for free, or use the free beta of Google Earth. These things would be standard in any spaceship.

Exploration will be an interesting game aspect, though, that I believe is in some sort of planning stage. Like roguelazer said, we've got core systems now. Later there will be discoveries of wormholes (which I think should be done with some sort of gravity sensor equipment) that lead to empty systems. Maybe at some point a system will have a new enemy in it, who knows.

Something else that shouldn't show up: New stations and wormholes. At least not immediately. If you build a station, only you should know about it, until someone sees it. This makes secret stations possible. Same with wormholes, if you discover one, you're the only one who knows, until someone else discovers it or sees you using it. That way if you discover a new system, you have time to claim it for your own. This is especially useful to governments, large factions and guilds.

Here's how discovering hidden wormholes and secret stations could work. Whenever you dock at a station you automatically download the current official map. You also automatically upload anything new you have seen to the official map, unless you change your settings. If you change your settings, then you have the option whenever you dock to upload or not. That way you can keep secrets. If you don't upload several times, though, your character is flagged by whatever govenments and factions, or player/guild owned stations notice you not uploading. If you're flagged, you might be watched to see if you're hiding something. If you own a station and look through the logs of who's docked recently, and notice that someone didn't upload their map the last several times they've been there, especially if they're buying stuff that might be used to build or upgrade a station, you'd definately want to either follow that person yourself or pay to have him followed. Maybe you'll find nothing, maybe you'll discover that this person found a new wormhole and was hoping to claim the system for his own, and now you have that information.

a problem professor. we do not have such excellent maps of places like north korea. why would an itani have such maps of the serco? even a UIT would not know such detail of others because they are traders and not trusted by the warring nations. all of your ideas sound good but i dont think the map point makes sense in this place. even if it did there is never much reality in scifi games.

That's why the idea of optional updating of the map. The part I left out was that Each faction would only update within the faction. This makes possible meaningful espionage missions. Because you're right about N. Korea. We do still at least know where N. Korea is, though.

In which case we know where all the systems are, but not necessarily the contents. When you start an alt the contents of all the sectors in the newbie systems would be listed, but elsewhere you would only know the positions of Major Stations and the contents of only the most-transversed sectors (i.e. the ion-storm prone asteroid sectors when you jump from WH A to WHB across a system). Maps, in turn, can be purchased from stations to flag x-number of sectors around the player's current position as 'explored'.