Vermillion Online vs Avorion

At a glance

Two ways to make a ship out of blocks

Both games let you design ships from blocks. They treat blocks very differently, and you feel it in the first ten minutes.

Avorion's blocks stretch. You can scale a block to any size, so a single hull block can be a whole wing. Stats come from the volume of each block type and its material: more engine volume, more speed; more generator, more power. Turrets are separate items with their own stats, built at a turret factory or looted, and you mount them on the hull. It's fast and flexible, and people build huge, detailed ships with it.

Vermillion uses fixed 1 m blocks: 68 armour shapes in Steel, Aluminium, Titanium, Iridium composite and Glass, plus about 140 functional and structural parts. Instead of scaling a block, you assemble systems out of parts, like From the Depths. An engine is a core plus cylinders plus coolers. A thruster is a nozzle plus amplifiers plus coolers. A gun is built in the ship too: a firing piece plus barrels, clips, autoloaders, gauge increasers and recoil absorbers, with a gauge from 12 to 300 mm. Every one of those blocks can be shot off.

Placement matters more in Vermillion. Thrust comes from where each thruster sits, so a ship with its thrusters off-centre flies badly. The designer shows live flight stats and a warnings panel, and you can test-fly before you build.

Galaxy vs one shared map

Avorion generates a galaxy for each game. You start at the edge and work toward the centre, past a barrier, through stronger factions and better materials. There's a story and a clear sense of progress. You can own stations, run fleets of captained ships and play alone for a hundred hours.

Vermillion has one fixed map that every player shares: 19 hex sectors, about 200 km across, with six stations. It doesn't grow and there's no campaign. What changes is the people. A server director spawns ore fields and pirate sites around online players, and fields run out and appear somewhere else. Jackpot fields are announced to the whole server, which is a good way to start a fight.

In Avorion, progress means travelling inward. In Vermillion it means taking more risk. Better ore sits further out: Titanite only in Low security, Iridium only in Lawless.

Multiplayer and PvP

Avorion's multiplayer is co-op first. You host for friends or run a dedicated server, and PvP depends on how the server is set up. Each server is its own galaxy.

Vermillion is online only, with one server everyone joins. The rules are graded by sector. Secure space has no damage. High security lets attacks land, but the attacker turns Criminal and police destroy them after 20 seconds. Low security has no police, and Lawless has no rules. The server decides every hit, and only tells your game about what your sensors detect. Firing your radar reveals ore and pirate sites, and every other pilot in range hears it.

Losing a ship

In Avorion, losing a ship hurts, but you can rebuild it through reconstruction at a repair dock.

Vermillion is full loot. A destroyed ship loses half its cargo, and the rest spills into the wreck for anyone to take. Other players can salvage the hulk. Everyone aboard dies, and characters drop a body bag with half of what they carried. You get a free Rookie Ship back, always. Everything else is on you, which is why haulers hire escorts and why the market keeps moving.

Trade and the economy

Avorion's economy is NPC factions, stations and trade routes, plus the stations you found yourself. It's a living simulation, but you are the only player in it unless you invite friends.

Vermillion's economy belongs to the players. Each station has its own order book with buy and sell orders, escrow, a 2% tax and price history. There's no global inventory, so goods sit where they were sold until someone hauls them. Courier contracts with collateral let you hire that job out. NPCs only set price floors and supply pirates to shoot.

Where Avorion is better

• It's finished. Full release since 2020, with expansions and years of patches. We're a playtest.
• Freedom of shape. Resizable blocks make big, detailed ships quick to build.
• Fleets and stations. Captains run your other ships, and you can found stations. We have neither.
• Play your way. Solo, co-op or your own server, at your own pace, away from strangers.
• Linux. Avorion runs on Linux. We have Mac and Windows only.
• Content. A story, factions and a galaxy to cross.

Who should play which

If you want a long block-building campaign by yourself or with a few friends, buy Avorion. It's very good at that.

If you've built enough ships for an empty galaxy and want to see what happens when other people are flying their own designs at you, try Vermillion. It's free, it's early, and the first players are still setting the prices.

Avorion questions

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