Glossary

Common Words

These are terms that most players will use and understand in game.

	Description
ALA	Abbreviation for Average Level of Aggression.
Botting	Term used for attacking large numbers of bots to gain experience.
Breaking Dance	The act of boosting your engine while holding your breaks. Used when taking screenshots.
Crackbotting	The practice of luring bots into "cracks", or other places in the VO universe, where the bots become stuck, enabling you to kill many of them at once.
Credit	The basic unit of currency in Vendetta Online
Exploit	The purposeful use of a broken game element or bug, for gain. (forbidden)
Fly Swatter	The weapon of choice (and necessity) when flying the frig.
"HELP"	(followed by 10 minutes of silence) An over-zealous pilot that got her/himself in trouble and doesn't deserve someone to come to her/his aid.
Griefing	Griefing has multiple definitions. Here's the most common ones: Griefing is a tactic used by some people to "have fun" (not my kind of fun). When a person griefs you, they either repeatedly kill you until you decide to act differently, or they might not ever stop killing you. If someone (Subject A for now) attacks another person (Subject B) B might get mad and repeatedly kill subject A until A promises to never kill B again. Usually, this is just a waste of time, but sometimes people can get their point across. Not my idea of fun (like I said), but grievers aren't me. #Griefing is also repeatedly killing a player who is unable to escape or defend themselves due to a lack of skill or ship configurations. #Griefing is also repeatedly attacking non-hostile people. This particularly annoys most people, but griefers can get away with it because they normally have superior ships and weapons. This is another "DON'T DO IT."
Ice, yo!	One of those shiny ice asteroids. With the old smaller, denser sectors people used to absent mindedly smash themselves on these things all the time. The ice asteroids gave more collision damage due to a quirk with their shape. Rabid Panda suggested to the devs that ships give a collision warning for ice roids, hence the term.
Idjut	Someone that HAS to bump your ship around while you are typing or lining up a screenshot or just chillin
Issue	To die in a collision, as with a roid, station, bot or other player, or to die with the /explode command.
j/m or jm	"Just a Minute" used when someone's in combat and cannot spare the time to write a coherent message.
Jump	The act of going from one sector to another through a jump point.
log	The act of logging out of VO [quitting the game; leaving the VO universe], as in "I gotta log cuz my gf wants to play".
NPC	Non-Player Character. Otherwise known as "bots."
Poi Pond	A tightly grouped population of drones among roids.
Queening	Involves going to hunt for Hive Queens
Roid</anchor>	A roid is the short name for an asteroid. Commonly found in... well, every sector, except empty ones. They will kill you if you run into them at high speeds. Roids will not explode if you shoot at them. They just sit there, acting as obstacles to the unobservant trader or fighter.
Roid Warping	Warping into a system and promptly smashing into an asteroid.
Sectors	Sectors are the squares on the 16 by 16 grid. You can freely fly about in each sector, except for the ones located around stars. We're not sure about those sectors yet, but we will figure out soon enough if we can use them eventually.
Space Quake	How VO is referred to at times due to its FPS style of movement and combat. Not all people agree with this description. (This name was much more accurate before the new navigation system came to be.)
Station Mining	Station mining doesn't involve looking for minerals in the station. Station mining takes place when someone drops mines near stations, killing other players. This is no longer a good idea because #The defense bots will destroy the mines, and #If someone gets hurt the defense bots will be hostile and you will be labeled KOS.
Spew	The cargo dropped by a destroyed ship.
Suicide Bots	Term for Aerna Seekers whose primary mode of attack is to self destruct near the target.
Systems	Systems are the named areas. There are 30 systems, each containing a 16 by 16 grid of sectors. The systems can be looked at by hitting default "n" or whatever is bound on your computer as nav.
Var Zoom (vz)	Variable Zoom bind.
Warp	The act of going from one System to another through a wormhole.
Widgets	The cargo available for sale in stations.
Xith	Abbreviation for Xithricite Ore.

Common Abbreviations

These are abbreviations of some of the main events and items in game.

	Description
ATM	At The Moment
CTF	Capture the Flag: Long gone feature of the game. Some vets still pine for it.
CtC	Capture the Cargo: Activity where Itani and Serco try to get the most Purified Xithricite Ore.
FC	Fast Charge battery.
FM	Forum moderator. Also FiReMaGe, another player. Taken within context.
GF	Good Fight. It's good sportsmanship to commend your adversary for a good fight, whether you've won or lost. Also, when used as a direct object in a sentence, could possibly mean "girlfriend", as in, "Gotta log cuz of my gf".
GTG	Got To Go (as in, "gtg cuz my gf wants me off the computer")
IDV	Itani Defense Vessel
MMOG/ MMORPG	Massive Multi(player) Online (Role Playing) Game.
OMW	If you need assistance from another player, OMW is a common response. It stands for On My Way, so you should know that they're going to come help you.
PK	If you have played many other video games, you should know what a PK is. PK stands for player kill. Player kills give large hits to factions, if it happens in a sector where the player is neutral or above. Should the player be disliked by a faction, have fun destroying them over and over. Soon (oh, trademarked by...someone. Who is it? Guild or a player?) the player will be so frustrated that you have to kill them 4 more times. I don't know why 4, but you do. Anyways, let's move on.
Prox	Proximity mines, mines that blow if you get too close.
rgr	Roger, said when someone understood a command
rp	Role Playing: when a player acts as a character in the game. Players can earn respect if done well, but over-doing it is just annoying.
SMV	Serco Military Vessel
UPK	Union Peace Keeper
valkjock	somebody with an over-sized ego that flies in a valk and kills n00bs
Vet	Veteran: Player who has been playing for a long time, especially since the alpha testing phase.
VO	Vendetta Online: The game we all know and love.
wc	Wrong channel. Typically this happens when a player types some text into a channel, or chat mode that he/she did not intend to.
WH	Most commonly stands for wormhole, the inter-galactic things used to move from one system to another. At least two are located in every system, some with more. Make sure you have full battery life when using a wormhole, they won't open for you unless you do.
1337	leet, very cool, amazing, cool, good, etc. Derived from the term "elite".

Ships

These are the player given names to the ships in game. These are used as some names are long and not quickly typed.

	Description
Bus	A bus is not a real ship name. Bus, short for EC-88, EC-98, and EC-whatever else, is a name given to the EC series for their crappy, well, everything and clunky size. Unless you have no money at all, buses aren't for you. Though good for beginner trade/combat missions, they really don't perform as well as any of the other ships in the fleet. Remember kids: Don't ride the bus. Bullies all over the place are looking to beat you up, even though most experienced players know that players in buses aren't good, so they don't shoot at you. One minor variation is: "GovBus" or "FreeBus" another term for the completely free EC-88.
Cent	Cent is normally short for Centurion, but some people use it short for Centaur. If you're not sure, ASK! It never hurt too many people... It's not good for someone to tell you to get a Cent (they mean a Centurion) and you get a Centaur. Centurions are fighters; Centaurs are trading ships, with some bombing capabilities. Sometimes people will use the term "IBG" which stands for the "Itani Border Guardian."
Vult	Vult is short for (you guessed it) Vulture. Vultures are good attack ships, especially if you don't have access to Valks yet, or if you just don't like Valks for some reason. Vults are used by Nation Defense Bots.
Hog	Hog is short for Warthog, another fighter. If you can't afford a Vulture, or you need to fit in a tight space, the Hog is good for that. It has a large weapons port as well, which the Vulture doesn't have. Hogs have a smaller wingspan than Vultures as well.
Valk	Valk is short for Valkyrie, the prized fighting ship of the Itani, but used by all 3 nations to wage war on humanity.
Tri-flare Valk	A tri-flare valk is just what it sounds like: a valk with 3 flares (most notably sunflares). There can also be tri-flare of other ships, but the Valk is noted for its awesome tri-flareness.
Maud	Maud (also called Pizza Cutter for its shape, as well as Mara) is short for Marauder, the awesome, amazing go blow yourself up (!) 48-cargo slot trading ship produced for the UIT, but as with the Valk and Prom, used by all nations.
Prom	Prom (also called Iron Slug) is short for Prometheus, the heavy bomber made especially for Sercos. Formidable when used right, the Prom looks like a box, just cooler. Antennae stick out from all over it, not to mention the weapon shafts.
Rag	Rag is short for Ragnarok, a heavy bomber, used by all needing some cargo space, but heavy firepower too.
Moth	Behemoth, The Propeller Group's latest creation. This monster of a ship is perfect for large cargo hauls and big mining ventures.
Frig	The Frig, short for Frigate (or officially the capital ship), is a humungous ship. The frig was previously an NPC, but has recently been opened for player use (see the article on the Heavy Assault Cruiser). The frig can kill anyone within a short distance from it. If you have several people, or work efficiently, you can take down the frig, getting *very* expensive cargo (called precious metals). They can be sold from 50,000 on up. The frig has awesome weapons, armor, and tons of cargo ports. See the article on the NPC Frigate for more information. A running joke is Inexperienced pilot + frigate = massive head trauma, causing lacerated organs. [Here is a pic of a frig.]

Batteries

Terms involving batteries.

	Description
Bat	Bat is short for Battery, the fuel cell responsible for you using plasma weapons and boosting. There are Hvy (heavy), Med (medium), FC (fast-charge) batteries, as well as the free and light batteries.

Weapons

This is a list of the names given to the weapons during alpha/beta testing, though some names have changed the terms have stuck around.

	Description
L-Port	L-Port is short for weapons:Large Port, which holds the more powerful, "large" weapons. Most rockets, all mines, and high-damage plasma weapons are large-port.
S-Port	S-Port is short for weapons:Small Port, holding "smaller" weapons, mainly rapid-fire plasma weapons. Sunflares are also small port, as well as some homer-type missiles.
AGT	Stands for Advanced Gatling Turret, the best gatling turret your money can buy, containing excellent auto tracking and high rate of fire. Advanced Gatling Turrets have been renamed to simply Gatling Turret.
Flares	Sunflares, Iceflares, or any other variant of unguided missiles fall under the Flares category. They are powerful unguided rocket weapons.
Gravs	A Grav is a Gravitron Blaster, another high-speed plasma weapon, more powerful than a Tachyon blaster. Gravitrons have been renamed the Positron Blaster.
Homers	The term Homer is most often used for Geminis but can be used for Large-port homing missiles also.
L-Mines	L-mines are Lightning Mines.
Nukes	Avalon torpedo launchers. 12000 damage/shot. These were removed in beta because there was nothing to use them on. It is theorized that they might be readded when the Frigate is readded
P-Mines	P-Mine (or prox.) is short for Proximity Mines. Proximity Mines explode when a player flies within a certain distance of them. Most cause plenty of damage, so they're fairly useful.
Popcorn Gun	Usually the nickname for the Flechette Cannon due to the shape and the sound it makes, but it can also be applied to the Gatling Cannon because both weapons are orange, and generally regarded as being useless.
Posi(s)	Posi is short for Gravitron Blaster, another high-speed plasma weapon, more powerful than a Tachyon blaster.
Swarms	Swarms are Locust Swarm Missiles, rockets fired in a cluster, causing major damage.
Tachs	A Tach is a Tachyon Blaster, a high-speed plasma weapon. Tachyons have been renamed the Neutron Blaster.

Player Tactics and Dev Pilot Names

These are terms given by players to other players for there style of play, also, there is a list of the developers ingame pilot names.

	Description
Fighter	Do I really have to explain? Fighters are people who live for the chase, using fighter ships.
Pirate	A pirate is a player who demands that another player drop their cargo, or face death. Pirates are also notorious for griefing and sometimes using cheap tactics (Rocket Ramming).
Rammer	There are two definitions. #A rammer is a person who uses a high proximity weapon up close so that the target cannot escape damage regardless of what they do. #A rammer is also a person who uses a proximity rocket at point-blank range, damaging oneself as well as the target.
Spammer	A person who shoots large amounts of homing missiles in the hope that one or more might hit. Common platforms for Missile Spamming are the Ragnarok and the Hornet using Gems and/or Swarms.
Trader	Self-explanatory, traders are people who trade cargo at assorted stations.
Guides	People who keep others in line with the rules. If you get a white message it is most wise to listen to it.
Dev/Devs	Short for Developer(s), Dev usually means one of the following individually, or all of them collectively
incarnate	incarnate is John Bergman, the Managing Director of Guild Software. He is in charge of product oversight, design direction, etc. John's account, forum, and in-game name is incarnate.
a1k0n	a1k0n is Andy Sloane, a programmer who wrote most of the network and server code among other things. Andy's account, forum and in-game name is a1k0n.
Vlad	Vlad is Waylon Brinck, who created much of the artwork you'll see ingame. Vlad is Waylon's account and forum name. Waylon is no longer an employee of Guild Software.
El Guapo	El Guapo is Waylon's in-game name.
raybondo	raybondo is Ray Ratelis, responsible for the bulk of the 3D engine, graphics APIs, and others. Ray's account, forum, and in-game name is raybondo.
Waylonics	Waylonics are also known as Galactic Trade Standard (GTS). This is the strange writing you'll see in various places on the stations in space. They are named after the Dev who stumbled upon them while exploring deep space.