Glossary

Common Words

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

	Description
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	A tactic used by some people to "have fun" ("fun" as defined by the griefer, not by most people). When a person griefs you, they repedeatly kill you, either to elicit change or just to annoy you. For example, if Alice kills Bob, then Bob might get mad and repeatedly kill Alice until Alice promises to never kill Bob again. Usually, this is just a waste of time, but sometimes people can get their point across. #Griefing is also: repeatedly killing a player who is unable to escape or defend themselves due to a lack of skill or ship configurations, and/or 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. Griefing is very strongly frowned upon and is a good way to get lots of people mad at you.
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 insists on bumping someone's ship around while they are typing, lining up a screenshot, or just resting.
Issue	To die in a collision, as with a roid, station, bot or other player, or with the /explode command. The term comes from the game's message for this type of death, "player is having issues."
Jump	The act of going from one sector to another via every ship's intrasystem jump drive. A player must be at least 3000m from any large object to initiate a jump.
log	The act of logging out of VO.
NPC	Non-Player Character. Otherwise known as "bots."
Poi Pond	A tightly grouped population of drones among roids.
Queening	The process of going to hunt for Hive Queens
Roid	The short name for an asteroid. Commonly found in nearly every sector. 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. Minerals can be mined from roids using mining beams.
Roid Warping	Warping into a system and promptly smashing into an asteroid.
Sectors	The squares on the 16 by 16 grid. You can freely travel to any sector in a system, except for the sectors 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	The act of dropping 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.
System	One of 30 named areas, each containing a 16 by 16 grid of sectors. The systems can be viewed at by hitting "n" (or whatever is bound to the nav map) and pressing "Zoom to Universe."
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.

Common Abbreviations

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

	Description
ALA	Average Level of Aggression.
ATM	At The Moment.
CTF	Capture the Flag. A 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.
GF	Good Fight. It's good sportsmanship to commend your adversary for a good fight, whether you've won or lost.
GTG	Got To Go.
IDV	Itani Defense Vessel.
j/m or jm	"Just a Minute." Often used when someone is in combat and cannot spare the time to write a coherent message.
1337	leet, very cool, amazing, cool, good, etc. Derived from the term "elite."
MMOG/ MMORPG	Massively Multi(player) Online (Role Playing) Game.
OMW	On my way. If you need assistance from another player, OMW is a common response.
PK	Player kill. (If you have played many other video games, you should know what a PK is.) 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.
Prox	Proximity mines. These mines blow if a player gets too close.
rgr	Roger (i.e. "I understand").
rp	Role Playing. This is when a player acts as a character in the game, i.e. pretends they are actually an Itani or Serco. Players can earn respect if done well, but over-doing it can be annoying.
SMV	Serco Military Vessel.
UPK	Union Peace Keeper.
valkjock	A player with an over-sized ego that flies in a valk and kills n00bs.
Vet	Veteran. A 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	Wormhole. These are the inter-galactic phenomena used to move from one system to another. At least two are located in every system, some with more.
Xith	Xithricite Ore.

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	Bus, short for EC-88, EC-98, and EC-whatever else, is a name given to the EC series for their crappyness 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. Also known as "GovBus" or "FreeBus."
Cent	Normally short for Centurion, but some people use it short for Centaur. If you're not sure, ASK! 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	Short for 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	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	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 valk with 3 flares (usually sunflares). There can also be a tri-flare of other ships, but the Valk is normally used since it is the best ship for such tactics.
Maud	Short for Marauder, the 48-cargo slot trading ship produced for the UIT, but as with the Valk and Prom, used by all nations. Also called Pizza Cutter for its shape, as well as Mara.
Prom	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. Also called Iron Slug.
Rag	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	Short for Frigate (or officially the capital ship), this is a humungous ship. The frig was previously an NPC, but has recently been opened for player use (see Heavy Assault Cruiser). The frig can kill anyone within a short distance. If you have several people, or work efficiently, you can take down the frig, getting very expensive cargo (called precious metals), which can be sold for upwards of 50,000 credits. The frig has awesome weapons, armor, and many cargo ports. See NPC Frigate for more information.

Batteries

Terms involving batteries.

	Description
Bat	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	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	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	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	Gravitron Blaster, another high-speed plasma weapon, more powerful than a Tachyon blaster. Gravitrons have been renamed the Positron Blaster.
Homers	Usually Geminis, but can be used for any Large-port homing missiles.
L-Mines	Lightning Mines.
Neuts	Neutron Blasters; also called "Neuts", "Neut IIs", or "Neut IIIs".
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 return with the Frigate.
P-Mines	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)	Short for Gravitron Blaster, another high-speed plasma weapon, more powerful than a Tachyon blaster.
Swarms	Locust Swarm Missiles, rockets fired in a cluster, causing major damage.
Tachs	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 included is a list of the developers ingame pilot names.

	Description
Fighter	People who live for the chase, using fighter ships.
Pirate	A player who demands that another player drop their cargo or face death. Pirates are also notorious for griefing and sometimes using cheap tactics, such as rocket ramming.
Rammer	A person who uses a high proximity weapon up close so that the target cannot escape damage regardless of what they do. 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	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	Developer(s). Usually means one of the following individually, or all of them collectively:
incarnate	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	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	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	Waylon's in-game name.
raybondo	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	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.