Vermillion Online FAQ

The playtest is a free download on itch.io. Nothing in the playtest asks for money. No price has been set for later, so we're not going to promise one here.

Yes, there are macOS and Windows builds on itch.io. The builds aren't signed yet, so each OS warns you once. On a Mac, open the game, then go to System Settings, Privacy & Security, and press Open Anyway. On Windows, SmartScreen says "Windows protected your PC": press More info, then Run anyway.

We haven't published minimum specs yet, because we don't have enough reports from different machines to stand behind any numbers. If the game runs badly for you, post your machine and what you saw on Discord. That's exactly the data we need.

Not yet. A Steam page is coming. For now the only download is on itch.io.

There is one server, in the EU (Nuremberg, Germany). Everyone flies in the same space. Players far from Europe will have higher ping.

It might. This is a playtest. Ships, credits and items may not survive into the next round. Watch the Discord for news about rounds and resets.

No, it's a playtest: a free test build of a game in development, with bugs and rough edges, run so we can learn from real players. Every playtest round so far was followed by a patch built from player reports.

Yes. When a ship is destroyed, half its cargo is gone and the rest spills into the wreck for anyone to take. Other players can salvage the hulk. When your character dies, you drop a body bag with everything you carried, and half of that is destroyed. Everyone aboard a ship dies with it.

You always get a free Rookie Ship back, so you're never locked out of the game.

Partly. The map has four security tiers over 19 sectors:

• Secure (1 sector): no damage at all.
• High security (6): attacks land, but the attacker turns Criminal and invisible police destroy their ship 20 seconds later. Suicide ganks are possible.
• Low security (9): no police. Criminals are fair game, and station guns shoot them.
• Lawless (3): no rules.

The best ore sits in the dangerous tiers. Titanite is only in Low security, Iridium only in Lawless. You can make a living in safer space, but the big money is where other players can reach you.

Yes. Pirates run patrols, solo hideouts (three waves and a boss), group strongholds and raids on mining fields. Bounties on screen range from 18,000 cr for a Pirate Skiff to 250,000 cr for a Pirate Captain, and pay 1.5 times as much in Lawless space.

Yes. Mining, refining, building and trading all work alone, the starter missions are solo, and pirate hideouts are built for one pilot. Groups get more out of strongholds and contested fields, and a ship can carry gunners. Parties and companies exist when you want company.

Yes. You have a body. Walk your ship with magnet boots on any wall, hull or asteroid, go out on EVA with a jetpack, board other ships and repair. There are personal weapons (pistol and assault rifle) for EVA fights, and they don't work in Secure or High security.

At a station you open the Ship Designer and place 1 m blocks: 68 armour shapes in 5 materials (Steel, Aluminium, Titanium, Iridium composite, Glass) plus around 140 functional and structural parts. Systems are built from parts the way From the Depths does it: an engine is a core plus cylinders plus coolers, a cannon is a firing piece plus barrels, clips, autoloaders and more. Bigger assemblies perform better and cost mass, heat and space.

The designer shows live flight stats and a warnings panel, and you can test-fly the ship straight from it before spending anything. Then you fabricate it at a station from refined materials.

No. There are stock designs: Rookie Ship, Starter Miner, Steel Fighter, Aluminium Fighter, Starter Gunship, Corvette, three radar ships and the Starter Hauler. Your first real goal is to mine ore in the free rookie and fabricate your own Starter Miner. Designing from scratch is there when you want it.

Newtonian, six axes, with flight assist you can turn off. Thrust comes from where you put the thrusters, so a badly balanced ship flies badly. There's no speed cap: top speed comes from thrust and mass, and typical ships run about 150 to 300 m/s.

Each station has its own order book with buy and sell orders, escrow, a 2% tax and price history. There's no global inventory: an item exists at one station, so goods have to be hauled. Ore is refined, crafted into parts and fabricated into ships. Courier contracts with collateral let other players do the hauling for you. NPCs only set price floors and supply pirates.

Yes, and it grows by doing (Mining, Refining, Modules and so on). It gates crafting and gathering only. It never stops you flying a ship you bought or looted. The first gated nodes take about 10 hours, then about 60, then about 120.

Join the Discord. It's the feedback channel. Say what happened, roughly when, and your username. "This felt wrong" counts as feedback too. Every playtest round so far was followed by a patch built from what players told us.

Not many yet. It's an early playtest with a small crew. The server is built and load-tested for 100 simultaneous players, but real sessions so far have been a handful of pilots. That also means the first prices, routes and killboard names are still up for grabs.