New to the PF Soulknife; I need advice with Deadly Fist Archetype

[Onixknight]

Hey there everyone! So heres the deal, I've played the Soulknife in 3.5 and the class was decent. The mobility aspect was pretty good and so was the Autohypnosis skill. It came in handy alot, as well as the ability to do Massive damage (litterally, a fort save to fall unconcious or die.) at low levels, but other than that not much to it.

So one day was looking though my friends' Pathfinder books and I saw that they remade the Soulknife Class! After I saw the new BAB advancement and Blade skills and I was like.. "UNCLE JHONATHAN'S CORNCOBB PIPE! This is amazing." One thing that really stuck out to me and looked pretty cool was the Deadly Fist Archetype. I got a little confused on how Empowered Strike (The Ability they get at first level) and wether or not you can use weapon feats with it. So without further ado, the burning questions that I have are as follows...

#1. Does the feat Vital Strike work with the Deadly Fists' Empowered Strikes?

#2 Does Vital Strike work with attacks of opportunity made with the Blade skill Trade Blows?

#3 Can you use your attacks of opportunity from the Blade Skill Trade Blows to make Trip attempts? and if so, can you use Improved Toppling Strike (Granted you have enough Attacks of Opportunity and you can hit the targets CDM) to trip everyone around you?

This is my first time seriously playing an 'unarmed' melee combatant so any other help would be great too, such as Feats or other blade skills

This is the book my friend had when I saw these abilities.
www.d20pfsrd.com/psionics-unleashed/.../soulknife/.../deadly-fist

[meemaas]

Vital Strike works with the Deadly Fists Empowered Strikes, but not with attacks of opportunity of any kind. Vital Strike can only be used on a standard action attack, but is compatible with any weapon attack you have.

Secondly, as far as blade skills go, if you can do it with the Mind Blade, or a Weapon in general, you can do it with your Empowered Strikes. The big difference is simply how you fight, making a more Monk like Soulknife.

As for suggestions, i usually favor some of the style feats from Ultimate combat, and possibly the ones from Psionics Expanded. A suggestion, if you are interested in dealing damage, would be a one level Dread (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/psionics-unleashed/classes/dread) dip, along with the Broken Dreams Style (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/psionics-unleashed/feats/broken-dreams-style-psionic-style) feat, to add an extra 1d6 damage to every attack you make. Add on the next feats in the chain, and you can make free intimidate checks every time you hit someone, and treat anyone you've intimidated as Flat footed against your attacks. On top of that, i'd suggest a one or two level dip into Master of Many Styles (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/monk/archetypes/paizo---monk-archetypes/master-of-many-styles) Monk, for a few other style feats, and the ability to be running two of them at once. As for Blade skills, i'd suggest at least one of the elemental ones, i prefer the Ice blade one myself, but each to their own. Finally, depending on how you choose your stats, i would suggest the Focused Offense blade skill, which would allow you to dump Strength more, and take advantage of Wisdom for attack and damage instead.