I heard there are three conquerable space stations in gray space, but right now there's a diplomatic truce in place and players aren't fighting over them anymore.

I'd like to see that idea brought back and expanded to add a whole new element to the game. This could be also be something challenging people could do with their capital ships.

I think it would be cool if players could build, conquer, or purchase their own modular, upgradable space stations, maybe in grayspace. If so, it would also be cool if there were more grayspace systems added all the way around the border, to give kind of a sense of continuity once you leave normal space.

The space stations could have NPC's that gather resources around the area, and perhaps factories could be built to manufacture products for trading. Bring in some RTS elements.

It would also be cool if those stations could be challenged for ownership, so players could have a race to build up defenses before others perform sieges.

I'm thinking of the RVR (realm vs. realm) model in Dark Age of Camelot, where the three realms would battle for possession of keeps out on the frontier. Some of the most exciting PVP that was. Once a keep was claimed, guards would appear, and players could begin spending resources (wood, stone, etc.) to build up the keep's defenses.

Perhaps the advantage of owning a station could be a % of the income from trades and repairs or something along those lines. Or if you want to bring RVR into it, the faction that owns the most space stations could also gain bonuses to XP and/or faction rep gains. Perhaps the player (or guild, or group) who claims a station could proclaim which faction they were claiming it for, be it Itani, UIT, Serco, or one of the corporations like Axia or something.

Could be very exciting! Would add a whole new dimension to the game.

I'm sorry I didn't do a search, I'm sure this has already been suggested... or something like it.

I have proposed something like this...

Guilds must be able to OWN stations and capships, as shared ownership. Then it could really boost Guild Wars... (NO, it is not like if station belongs to a Guild member)

Then, Guilds must declare their alignment relative to nations, factions and other Guilds. So everything the Guild owns reflects its alignment. Example: THC is friendly only to Corvus, so anything it owns only accepts Corvus PoS pilots automatically, and its allies, CHRN...

Next, we need P2P trade implemented in station...

All this have happened before, and will happen again... again...

So far ConqStations are in early beta stage. We're expeting some upgraded model Soon(TM)

We would be fighting over them if they weren't so crucial for the mass-production of capital ship parts.

I've suggested before that the mass-production parts be moved to normal faction stations and only the final bits be manufactured at the conquerable stations.

Good suggestion Zanriel, this sounds more or less in line with what the devs have been saying.

Yup, that is basically what we have planned. The three-station thing was a testbed, intended only to get the mechanics fundamentally working. Then we were distracted a bit by "phones". Anyway, the goal is still to expand grayspace and have mainly conquerable (and eventually constructable) content in the expanded universe.

This is actually something I've been thinking about a bit more lately, as I've been working on the galaxy map backgrounds for systems. So, I've been touching on some of the mechanics involved with rolling new systems.

That said, there are a few things we'd really like to fix first, which are longstanding problems.

Understatements for the win :P

Yup, that is basically what we have planned. The three-station thing was a testbed, intended only to get the mechanics fundamentally working. Then we were distracted a bit by "phones". Anyway, the goal is still to expand grayspace and have mainly conquerable (and eventually constructable) content in the expanded universe.

Inc, +1

I heard there are three conquerable space stations in gray space, but right now there's a diplomatic truce in place and players aren't fighting over them anymore.

Actually, it's not the diplomatic problem. E.g. THC has resources, people, bots to conquer all three stations almost every day, but at moment, there's no need in doing this. Even no point of taking ransom from station owners, because there's no loot or destroy option when conquering a station.

Yes, theoretically I can hold the station for a couple of days and more, but the problem is many traders and other cappie contructors have alts in pirate guilds and they're not interested in keeping it from their own use (heh, no reason in making harm to themselvs, ye). At most they don't log in at defence, do smth else or actually "passive", afk, etc and that's all about it.

So, if you want to make pirate raids useful, make gameplay in general more interesting and push traders to actually care about building non stop defence system, devs should implement some sort of instant harm to the conq station, like mentioned above.

The first space trading game I played was Yankee Trader back in the BBS days. Then there was Tradewars, which is still running in graphical form to this day.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yankee_Trader

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_Wars

I would say that VO shares at least as much similarity to those games as Elite, especially since they're both multiplayer, and they involve trade, combat, and conquest. The multiplayer aspect introduces a lot of opportunities for conflict, cooperation, and a heightened sense of risk, which just adds that much more flavor to the experience. The suggestion I made in this thread is taken almost directly from those two games mentioned above, as well as the X series.

I'm glad to hear you're already working on these ideas. I can't wait to see how things unfold. This coming Saturday will mark the end of my first week playing this game, and I must say, I'm very impressed. This game deserves to grow and develop, and it definitely deserves my subscription.

Take a combination of Yankee Trader / Tradewars, X3, and Freelancer/Privateer, add some military compaign elements ala Wing Commander or Descent Freespace, make it massively multiplayer in a persistent online universe, and you have pure gaming bliss for almost anyone who likes spaceships. And who doesn't like spaceships? This game is seven years old, yet there's still so much untapped potential there. I can't wait to see what's coming next! And I can't wait to find out what else the game has in store as I continue to progress.

Why aren't more people playing this? Why haven't more people heard about it?

Glad to hear you're enjoying it, Zanriel. Word of mouth is probably the most powerful tool we can use to boost subscriptions. Writing an online review giving Vendetta a positive rating on other websites is one thing you could try. I've found by googling Vendetta Online it turns up in surprising places (e.g. thescienceforum.com). I also spend some time at sites like morpg.com, where getting the word out to other people that play games like World of Warcraft is easier.

Just giving your impressions of Vendetta Online like you did above whenever the opportunity presents itself is worthwhile.