The Vedette is one of the only vehicles produced by the New Earth Trading Company. During the time that New Earth was researching robotics, another section of the company started producing military vehicles. The Vedette was the first and most popular of these vehicles, and soon many companies began to pursue licenses to build them on other planets.
         The Vedette is a standard unit of "measure" among military crews. For example, most vehicle crewmen will ask of a new tank, "How many Vedettes do you figure that thing is equal to?" The Vedette has become a standard because it is a simple but effective vehicle. Mounting only one main weapon and one secondary weapon, the Vedette is considered to be a "typical" tank.

         Unlike many modern military vehicles, the Vedette mounts only one main weapon. This does not make it a less effective vehicle than a newer tank, but does reduce its ability to deal with a wide variety of targets. By contrast, the very popular Manticore tank has a weapon for every combat range, which makes it able to effectively engage targets anywhere on the battlefield.
         The tank's main weapon is an autocannon similar to the one mounted on the Shadow Hawk. The New Earth Trading Corporation chose this weapon because it is the most weight-efficient, has excellent long-range capability, and is easy to replace. The designers did try other weapons such as lasers and PPCs, but these did not fit well on the Vedette's chassis and required heat sinks and power amplifiers, which the tank's size could not carry.
         The secondary weapon is a small-caliber machine gun mounted in the bow of the tank in a mini-ball turret, giving the driver an excellent arc of fire. The machine gun fires shells at very high velocity, which compensates for its small caliber.
         The Vedette's main selling point is its speed, which is fast even for a medium tank. Most tank manufacturers ignore high speed for vehicles over 35 tons, because 150+ rated engines are very inefficient. The Vedette can use its speed to great effect by moving into optimum autocannon range, opening fire, and then retreating as fast as possible to another fire position. Most modern tanks, especially medium to heavy, do not use mobility as their main defense. They rely on heavy armor and firepower to win the battle.
         The New Earth Vedette's communication and tracking systems are ComStar originals, though Quikscell of Layover is forced to use local components in their place. While nearly as effective, many purchasers do obtain the ComStar systems from New Earth as they have fewer quirks than the Quikscell models.

         The standard Vedette is one of the most widespread name-brand tanks in the Human Sphere, with another Quikscell vehicle the Scorpion surpassing it. Some estimates suggest that there is at least one Vedette on every world in the Inner Sphere and many outside it. Many of them have been updated of course, but the Quikscell Vedette is the standard base. Because of this, and their low cost compared to other producers, Quikscell of Layover makes a brisk business selling to anybody in the Human Sphere interested in buying their product.