Before the big impact that the release of VO 1.9 will have, here are some suggested fixes and nerfs for the time in between.

- Add the Valent Neutron Acclerator to the purchaseable item list once you finished the respective mission for it. The weapon has potential as a niche Neutron Blaster with good velocity and decreased delay, offering a less damage intensive alternative to the LENB. I propose the following, buffed stats for it:

Damage: 600
Velocity: 200 ---> 210
Energy: 14/blast ----> 13/blast
Delay: 0.14 s ---> 0.12 s
Mass: 400 kg
Grid: 4
Buy-Price: 20.000c

- Tweak the UI for the outer view character information to allow more than 20 visbible badges. Right now, a player can have a total of 21 badges unlocked. The UI only allows to show 20 to other people hitting k and checking stats. This is more a bug fix than a fancy new addon. Tweaking this was probably forgotten when introducing the new First Kill badge.
- Increase the Raptor UDVs armor from 10500 to 11000 and increase its mass from 3800 to 3900.
- The Extreme Drain Powercell really lacks a purpose and is hard enough to unlock already. Increase its grid to 8 atleast to make it worthwhile for intense energy PvP (in Corvults, for example).
- There really needs to be some good large port energy weapon for a better variety in PvP. I suggest to give the Plasma Annihilator some love:

Damage: 1800
Velocity: 205
Energy: 65/blast ---> 60/blast
Delay: 0.4 s ---> 0.3 s
Mass: 1300 ---> 1000
Grid: 8

- For nostalgic reasons, it would be cool to see the basic Wraith Mk1-Mk3 return, much like the EC-88. It'd be cool to see it on special offer in a station (Axia) every Sunday or something. Or they could be invented via a follow up mission tree to the tree that leads to the EC-88. Or did Phaserlight already make a secret tree and nobody knows yet? ;)
- The Gatling Cannon HV is still crap while it was supposed to be a really cool weapon. A few changes can change this!

Damage: 400 --->500
Velocity: 200 ---> 205
Energy: 10/blast
Delay: 0.075s]
Mass: 800 ---> 700
Grid: 8

It would quickly turn the underdog-gat into a risky-to use weapon that rewards you for handling it well!

EDIT: As suggested by the playerbase, I'd recommend a change to addon scanners also:
- Let addon scanners also scan the amount of ammo left for those weapons that require ammo (rockets, rail guns etc.)

These are mainly suggestions to buff some weapons/ships that deserve the buff and would, if they were given just a bit of attention, be new considerable tools in VOs PvP. All of these suggestions which are (in my opinion) much needed should be implementable quickly so that our dev team won't lose 1.9 out of sight.

Criticism is welcome if it is voiced in a contructive manner!

+1

The main thing that really makes the Gat HV not very good is that it fires at the same effective rate as the Gatling MkII: 0.128s, not 0.075s

I agree with the reasoning here, but not the suggested changes. Just do this:

Delay: 0.075s ---> 0.064s

This is closer to its rated speed and falls below the next time quantum to actually produce a higher rate of fire.

-1 to buffing the Plasma Annihilator. It's a great weapon now. The last buff did the trick just fine.

I think your request for UDV changes are just too insignificant Sieger, I propose UDV gets another L port,
decrease its weight to 2900kg, up the armor to 21000 and yes, to make it really good - make the drain similar to greyhound.
Oh and if there is any scanner that hasn't been addd to UDV (probably ore scanner and all variants of cargo and equipment spoofers) add that too please.

Also, valent accelerator deserves to be better then neut 3. Stupid special ctc winner weapon neut 3 should get it's stats reduced to plasma hx specs.

Valent accelerator should perhaps be more efficient maybe 12 or 11 per shot and have reduced grid. Good way to have it as a viable 3rd valk weapon or as a better pairing on a dual energy setup

Powercell
I was under the impression both the extreme drain and improved were buffed in grid, but re-reading Inc's statements in https://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/29911 makes me realize this may not be the case.

+1 if this is not already implemented.

Plasma Anni
A more useful improvement would be to reduce the grid requirement so it could be used in place of the gat mk2 which is currently the default weapon on a heavy ship due to it's best in class ability to deliver high damage and be equipped with 2 other weapons.

Valent Neut
+1

Badges
Not really a concern at present and isn't going to add much to the player experience.

Wraiths
Bringing old ships back with worse visual designs than current models is not really beneficial to the impression the game creates for new players.

Gat HV
Fix the fire rate, buff it, do something.

Agreed, the gat HV needs some attention. It's accuracy seems like its weakest feature.

BRING BACK THE WRAITH
+9999999999999999999999999....

+1 to valent neut buffs
+1 to buffing the UDVs armor. could just turn it closer to a mid weight ship and give it 12000 armor and increase the mass to 4300kg...
+100 to making the extreme drain cell useful!
-1 to the plasma annihilator buffs as suggested. reducing the mass will be enough
+1 to doing anything useful to the gat hv.

Ummm, the Extreme Drain Power Cell already got a huge buff, it's charge rate was increased from 48/sec to an unprecedented 52/sec. Maybe it's not so useful because it can only be obtained in tiny quantities via difficult missions?

Thanks for all the replies. I comment on what I feel needs commenting.

abortretryfail - I'm fine with your suggested buff for the Gat HV. Although I feel that even if that happened, it'd still go unused. Giving it superior damage will put it in its own class. The targeting will still be poor compared to the Gat Mk2, but every hit you score will be much more pleasant.

As for the EDPC... Indeed the change was awesome. But leaving it at grid 5 limits its use in combat greatly. Effectively, the only practicable use I can think of would be a Centurion Superlight which then couldn't even use the CWM as single blaster but would have to stick with something less awesome.
That's why it should go to grid 8. It will be a most awesome cell which could still only find it's use on 2 port ships, preventing from more powerful Prom and Valk setups to show up. I deem this change very fair.

Savet - Fair points. Although I tend to disagree with your Annihilator statement. The grid 8 isn't hurtful. Most combinations still work with it as most rockets take up 4 grid points only, if I remeber correctly.

And I seriously don't believe that bringing back the old Wraith models via a mission or something similar would throw a bad light on VO. It's a niche game anyway, people who love VO will not mind that it doesn't look like EVE or other beautiful screensavers. A nostalgic ship returning isn't going to change peoples minds.

You could use any normal 4-grid weapon, plus a scanner on one of the many 2-port ships. That's the tradeoff for having the high charge rate and big capacity.

except for no one uses scanners...

I use scanners on my 2 energy valk or my widowmaker SVG. But that's it. It needs a bit more grid.

Widowmaker + addon and cargo scanners are great on valks

My suggestion only extends to increasing the grid from 5 to 8. Equipping a WM is out of the question anyway.

Make scanners work from the cargo hold again.

Harpo, I'd rather see some ships have an additional small port for scanners than scanners working in every ships hold.

I'd be more likely to use Addon Scanners if they displayed remaining ammo.

+arf