Revised - May, 1997 Someguy Enterprises Presents: ===================================================================== How To Play TradeWars And Stay Alive! ------------------------------------ Written By: Fred Wehner Email address: someguy@rockpile.com Web Page: http://bbs.rockpile.com/someguy ===================================================================== >>> Updated for: MBBS game ver. 2.02, and DOS game ver. 2 beta 8 ================== TABLE OF CONTENTS: ================== PART ONE: History of The Game . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 PART TWO: Beginner's Basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 The First Day . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Exploration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Building a Home Base . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 PART THREE: Advanced Topics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Ship Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Ship Specifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Commentary on Ship Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Ship Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Planet Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Upgrading the Citadel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 How to Make The Big Bucks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Defense Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Defensive Weapons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Complete Defense Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Planetary Defenses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Invasion Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Alignment & Experience-Point Tricks . . . . . . . . . . . 34 How to Increase Experience Points . . . . . . . . . . . 35 How to Reduce Experience Points . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 How to Move Alignment in the Positive Direction . . . . 37 How to Move Alignment in the Negative Direction . . . . 38 Alignment & Experience Points Considerations . . . . . 39 Playing Good . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 Playing Evil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 PART FOUR: Miscellaneous Topics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 Towing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 Lost Commission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 Colonist Life Cycle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 Cloaks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 Limpit Mines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 Capturing Ships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 Evil Imperial StarShip . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 Helper Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 Density Scanner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 Ship Passwords . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 Attacking Un-Occupied Ships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 Sysop Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 Using Bugs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 Revenge of The Ferrengi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 Capturing The Ferrengi Scorpion . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 Changes in Bust Clearing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 Credits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 Revision History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 Begging For Help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 Page 4 ============================= PART ONE: History of The Game ============================= Tradewars, it's a Life, not a Game. At least that's how a lot of people see it, just ask any addict! Tradewars was invented in the early 1980's by Chris Sherrick. Back then, the game was a very simple affair, one type of ship, no planets, etc. Approximately 10 years ago, Chris sold his software source code to several individuals, one of whom was Glen Fredericks of Clifton, NJ. Glen developed the game for several years, and invented the random universe creation. I first learned the game on Glen's BBS, having a lot of fun working with him (back in the mid 80's) on beta testing of early versions. Various authors took the game in different directions, but most of them were eventually abandoned. About 1990, the dominant author became Gary Martin. This is the version that has survived to this day. Gary added most of the features that are present in the current game including: the Ferrengi, all the different ship types, planets, and the wonderful graphics that make the game so nice. Today, Gary's product is available in 2 forms. There is the multi- player game for Major BBS (MBBS) and the DOS version used by other BBS types such as PCBoard that run it as a "door", generally as a single player game. The DOS version can be run at home without a BBS. Most features are identical in both games, though minor differences do exist. Most of the development work is done on the MBBS Version, the DOS version is lagging behind. The MBBS Version has much greater flexibility for sysop configuration and has all the latest tricks lacking in the DOS Version. The DOS version is available as shareware (download it from my web-page) and the MBBS version is obtainable only from the author at costs starting at $ 700.- or so. (sigh) Page 5 ============================ PART TWO - BEGINNER'S BASICS ============================ The following is intended to teach new players how to get started and survive the first few days, and to remind the more experienced players of the basics. In order to play competitively, you really *must* get a program called TWHELPER, and send in the registration for it. It's cheap, and worth every cent. This program will do many many things for you automatically: locate and plot the course to the nearest trading ports; do the actual trading for you automatically and very profitably while you're off raiding the fridge; move you from one sector to another scanning every sector ahead of you; and stopping when anything nasty is ahead! It will locate enemy forces for you, and will perform most every function, except the basic strategy. TWHelper is available from my webpage, or from the Author: Just FUN Software 4790 Naniloa Drive Salt Lake City, UT. 84117 There are other "helper" programs available, also available from my website, but I feel TWHelper is The Best. The First Day. ------------- When you enter the game for the first time you will find yourself in a ship type called the Merchant Cruiser. It seems like a good ship, but take my word for it, it's NOT the ship to have. Sell it immediately! Hit the V command to locate Stardock, go there immediately, and trade the Cruiser in to purchase a Merchant Freighter. The Freighter is a small ship, and cannot carry many armaments, but it does move from one sector to another using only 2 turns. That's as efficient as it gets. (The Cruiser you started with took 3 turns to move). The Freighter is able to carry 65 holds which is pretty decent, and best of all, can carry a Holo Scanner. The Holo Scanner is critical for efficent exploration....more on this later. As soon as you have sold the Cruiser and bought a Freighter, you will need to outfit it. You *must* buy a scanner, but at the start you will be able to afford only a Density Scanner. Get it! You should split your remaining cash, half on fighters (don't get more than 100 now) and spend the rest of your cash on holds to carry cargo. Page 6 When you blast off from Stardock, you'll find that other players cannot attack you while you are still there. You are safe in Fedspace (sectors 1 thru 10 and at Stardock) unless your experience points exceed 1,000 or you become evil. Now you need to make some money quickly. Go off in some random direction and look for a trading port. Once you find a port use the Density Scanner to see if any other port is next door, then go there. The idea is to locate a pair of ports next door to each other, where each one buys what the other one is selling. That way, you can just move back and forth and be carrying a load of product both ways. That's the way to make some quick bucks. Every once in awhile, get the report from sector 1 (command C R 1) and see if you can get a bunch more holds yet. Your goal is to get a total of 65 holds on your freighter as fast as possible. If you happen to run across another player in the game, run like hell! You would waste your assets trying to kill someone and you don't want to make an enemy on the first day. Once you have bought some more holds and have a perhaps 50,000 credits, go back to stardock and start thinking about some serious exploration. This seems to be a big waste of time and credits, but over the long run it's absolutely critical. Exploration: ----------- Sit at Stardock in safety and get TWHELPER running. Once it's up, you then issue the /k command which sends a long list of numbers into twhelper's database. This list includes all the map data for the sectors you have explored so far. Then issue the /r command and all the known ports will go into your twhelper database. Next, issue the /U command using the sector number for stardock. For example, if stardock is sector 934, then the command is /934U. This command can take over an hour or two to complete, but you need not be there watching. Go out for a beer while it's running. It will plot a course from stardock to every sector in the game, and back. After this is done, issue the same command using sector 1, namely /1U. You need not be in those sectors when you do it, just be sure to include the sector numbers. This will give twhelper a real good idea of the physical map of the entire universe, though not the location of the ports. Page 7 Once you have completed the /U commands, twhelper will know where the longest tunnels are, and you may use the /6E command to automatically shoot E-probes into the farthest sectors. Once probed, those sectors will be included in twhelper's database. I like to shoot off a minimum of 25-50 E-probes as soon as possible before doing anything further. When you've used your probes, go out and do some manual exploration with the Holo Scanner. Again, twhelper does this automatically, using the /2e command. This command causes your ship to travel around, trading as it goes, and it will automatically holoscan any unexplored sector it comes to. Those holoscanned sectors then go right into twhelper's database. By the end of your turns for the day, you will have a good bit of the universe explored, and have accumulated a nice chunk of cash by trading on the way. Once you make it back to Stardock, spend most of your cash on more probes, and shoot them at that time. It might be a good idea to keep a little bit, say 50,000 credits, in the Bank at StarDock for a rainey day. The goal is to get as large a percentage explored as quickly as possible. You can probably explore at least 75% of the universe in the first 3 days. At the end of each day's turns, you will want to be sure your experience points (XP) is under 1,000 so you'll still be safe in fedspace. See the section on XP and Alignment tricks to reduce your score. Remember, the score is worthless to you at this point. What good is it if you get killed and lose your ship and cash? Building a home base: --------------------- After you have at least 75% of the universe explored, and have shot off at least 50 E-Probes (100 would be better), you will know the location of all the deepest tunnels. A tunnel is a string of sectors in a row that end in a dead end. Your base will be in the dead end, and any invader will have to get thru whatever defenses you can pile up in front of it, sector by sector. The longer the tunnel, the more stuff you can pile up to hide behind, and the safer you will be. I don't feel secure unless I have at least 5-6 sectors of nasty stuff protecting me. Even better than a tunnel, is a tunnel that spreads out in the back. That way you can have several sectors of defense protecting a larger number of sectors that you will then control. You will want to have several players joining you in a corporation, so that you will be able to raise enuff cash quickly...the way I like to do it requires a million or two million credits to get started building. Page 8 If you start building too soon (and you haven't earned enough credits to buy decent defenses) another player will surely come along and raid you, taking all your stuff nearly for free. He'll then enjoy the fruits of your labor because you didn't wait until you could defend what you built! Start by finding a ore selling port, at or near the dead end. This will be your home sector. Build a nice navigation hazard (NavHaz) at the mouth of the tunnel. Do this by building planets and detonating them. The ideal way is to build as many as 30-50 (minimum 25) planets all in 1 sector in your tunnel, near the mouth, and blowing up 5 of them once they are all built. This will give you a 50% navhaz, which will have a 50% chance of killing 500 fighters off of any ship that tries to enter, including yours. Then, each night, during the bbs cleanup process, 2 of the planets will collide, and add another 20% to the haz. In a few days, it will approach 100%. (There is one drawback to this, in that the sector number of and colliding Haz Planets will be noted in the News Log, so everyone will know where you're located immediately. On the other hand, they'll find you quickly enough regardless.) Use your judgement on this one. Leave as many defensive fighters in this sector as possible at this time, up to 2,000 or 3,000. The bad guys can still get through, but they will certainly think twice before trying it, and it will definitely discourage casual raiders from browsing your tunnel. Buy all the mines you can afford, and put them in the next sector after the NavHaz. Any invader could easily use mine disrupters to kill your mines, but if they have to go into your NavHaz each time to bring more disrupters, they won't enjoy getting hit each time. It takes 4 trips into the haz to bring enuff disrupters to kill 250 mines. Not fun! The reason for the 2-3000 fighters(figs) in the first sector is so that the occasional Ferrengi doesn't blunder into your minefield and waste them. Now, it's time to build your home planets. There is more data later, but for now, it is best to build 4 mountainous planets and 1 oceanic type. You cannot select which planet type to build, it is random. Once there are 5 planets, and some of them are not the type you want, just blow them up and replace them, one by one. The best port to locate at is a SBS, but a SBB will do also. The SBS is best, because you'll then have fuel ore there for twarp, and equipment available for upgrading your planets. Btw, the only product your planets will ever produce for sale, is organics. More on this later. Page 9 Bring in the minimum of 400 colonists from terra, and enough product to upgrade the planets, and start a citadel on the first planet. Then move the colonists to the next planet, and start citadels on each. The colonists do NOT need to remain on the planet while you wait for the upgrade to be finished. You want your upgrades started as soon as possible, as each level of citadel will do more for you in the way of defense. Once you've gotten your citadels started, get back to making money by trading, and also continue your exploration. You will need every cent you can scrape up, to increase your defenses. Be sure you have at least one player in a Tholian Sentinel sitting in the same sector as your planets, as this makes it extremely expensive for raiders to blow you away, and it won't cost you all that much in the first place. Any players on your team that have under 1,000 XP points, and are "goodies" can park overnite safely in fedspace. If they have over 100 fighters on them, they will be towed out to a random sector in space by the Feds during the nightly cleanup. Page 10 ============================== PART THREE - ADVANCED TOPICS ============================== Ship Types: ----------- There are 19 types of ships in the TW Universe, and all are different. The most important concern is trading efficency, but there are various things to consider. There is the "gross trading capacity" which is the number of holds divided by the number of turns it takes to move to the next sector. This is a rough idea of how good a trader a particular ship type is, but it does not cover several questions of overhead. Some considerations: 1) Turns used at the beginning of each session, traveling to the first trading port. 2) Turns used to move to a new trading pair, when you've drained a particular pair of ports. Ships with many holds, lose some of their efficiency because they trade out the ports in only a few round trips and must move on to another pair much more often, thereby wasting a greater percentage of their total turns, just moving from one area to another. 3) Turns used to travel back home from the last trading pair of the day. T-warp ships gain a small advantage here. 4) The ISS and Corp.Flag have a possible advantage at certain stages of active games, when most adjacent trading port pairs are badly traded out, so twarp-trading can give them an advantage when other ships cannot find decent trading pairs. These items of overhead vary widely on various ship types, and penalize slower ships that take more turns to move. Large ships suffer the other penalty of draining ports quickly and having to move on more often. My calculations show that while the Freighter wastes perhaps 14% of it's turns this way...the Colonial transport wastes a full 59% of it's turns like that! That's why a Freighter will earn you 2/3rds more money per day than a Colonial Transport will! Page 11 I spent quite a few hours constructing a spreadsheet that calculates the efficiency of the various ship types, taking all the overhead factors into consideration. The following chart shows general data on each ship type, including the "T.E." factor (Trading Efficiency). Each individual game's universe varies greatly from all others, so "your mileage may vary". If you find yourself earning 500,000 credits a day in the Cruiser that you started with and you think that's good...then just take a Freighter's T.E. and divide it by your Cruiser's T.E. and multiply by what you're earning now: 100/72*500,000 and see you could be earning almost 700,000 credits a day...not bad eh? Here's a chart showing all the ship types, with some handy data, and on the far right column is my "T.E." Trading Efficiency Factor. Page 12 Ship Specifications: ==================== | | Max | Max | Max |Combat| | # Ship Type | Turns |Holds | Fighters |Shields| Odds | T.E.| ----------------------+-------+------+----------+-------+------+------+ 0 Escape Pod 6 5 50 50 .7 2 1 Merchant Cruiser 3 75 2,500 400 1.0 72 2 Scout Marauder 2 25 150 100 2.0 41 3 Missile Frigate 3 60 5,000 400 1.3 59 4 BattleShip 4 80 10,000 750 1.6 55 5 Corporate FlagShip 3 85 20,000 1,500 1.2 84 6 Colonial Transport 6 250 200 500 .6 61 7 CargoTran 4 125 400 1,000 .8 78 8 Merchant Freighter 2 65 300 500 .8 100 9 Imperial StarShip 4 150 50,000 2,000 1.5 93 10 Havoc Gunstar 3 50 10,000 3,000 1.2 52 11 Starmaster 3 73 5,000 2,000 1.4 71 12 Constellation 3 80 5,000 750 1.4 76 13 T'Kasi Orion 2 60 750 750 1.1 93 14 Tholian Sentinal 4 50 2,500 4,000 1.0 36 15 Taurean Mule 4 150 300 600 .5 88 16 Interdictor Cruiser 15 40 100,000 4,000 1.2 5 17 Ferrengi Assault Trader 2 50 3,000 200 1.0 79 18 Ferrengi Battle Cruiser 3 75 8,000 800 1.2 72 19 Ferrengi Dreadnought 4 100 15,000 1,000 1.4 66 Page 13 Page 2 of Ship Specs: ===================== | Teleport | | Genesis | Safety | Total | # Ship Type | Range | Mines| Torpedo | Rating | Cost | ----------------------+----------+------+---------+---------+--------+ 0 Escape Pod - - - 70 N/A 1 Merchant Cruiser 5 50 5 2,900 131,695 2 Scout Marauder - - - 500 27,785 3 Missile Frigate 2 5 - 7,020 146,832 4 BattleShip 8 25 1 17,200 190,236 5 Corporate FlagShip 10 100 10 25,800 352,285 6 Colonial Transport 7 - 5 420 711,400 7 CargoTran 5 1 2 1,120 226,125 8 Merchant Freighter 5 2 2 640 100,015 9 Imperial StarShip 10 125 10 78,000 669,290 10 Havoc Gunstar 6 5 1 15,600 216,642 11 Starmaster 3 50 5 9,800 364,899 12 Constellation 6 25 2 8,050 171,840 13 T'Kasi Orion 3 5 1 1,650 79,420 14 Tholian Sentinal 3 50 1 26,000 106,060 15 Taurean Mule 5 - 1 450 312,500 16 Interdictor Cruiser 20 200 20 124,800 586,170 17 Ferrengi Assault Trader - 10 - 3,200 N/A 18 Ferrengi Battle Cruiser 2 25 3 10,560 N/A 19 Ferrengi Dreadnought 5 50 6 22,400 N/A Page 14 The listing under "Safety Rating" is the total fighters plus shields, multiplied by the ship's odds. This is the number of fighters it will take to kill a fully loaded ship of this type, assuming an attacking ship with 1:1 odds. Please note that the Tholian Sentinel's rating would be only 6,500 if if it had no planet in the sector. The Cost figures shown above include full holds, and HoloScan if available, Density Scanner if not, and none for those ships that can't accept them. T-warp (type 2) is included, where available. Shields and fighters would be additional. Cost of Ferrengi ships is not shown, because they can't be purchased, only captured. Commentary on Ship Types: ========================= 0) Escape Pod: This is what you wind up in when your ship gets blown -------------- up. It takes 6 turns per hop to move, and it's totally worthless. It's only purpose is to take you to stardock and buy a real ship. If you have no money, at least trade the pod for a Scout, as the pod has enough resale value to buy one. Only one redeeming feature, this ship cannot be captured at all, only destroyed, so if it's loaded with corbomite, it makes a nasty surprise for someone. You get a maximum of 2 pods per day, after that, you are dead until tomorrow. 1) Cruiser: TE=72, 3 turns, 75 holds. This is the ship all new ----------- players start out in. Not the best type of ship, take it directly to stardock, and trade it for something else, preferably a freighter. 2) Scout Marauder: TE=41, 2 turns, 25 holds. Not good for trading, ------------------ but it does have 2:1 combat odds, so it can be useful to attack other small ships. I like to use them in invasions when the "victims" are not online at the time. If there are no Quasar Cannons on planets in the sector, this ship's combat odds (2:1) make it the cheapest way to mow down large quantities of sector fighters and heavily defended ships, very cheaply! You'll need a teammate there in a large ship to keep feeding you more fighters though, as it can carry only 250 fighters. Density Scanner only. This ship does not have an escape pod, so if you get killed in one of these, you're dead until tomorrow. Page 15 3) Missile Frigate: TE=59, 3 turns, 60 holds. Not a good trading ------------------- ship, or anything else. Useful only in that it can carry Photon Torpedos (max of 10). This is the only photon-capable ship that is available to evil players until 3 months or so into the game when the Ferrengi start building Dreadnoughts. The technique is to shoot the P-torp from the Missile Cruiser, then teleport to a larger ship, and drive into the sector, quickly. One big drawback, this ship cannot carry a scanner (not even density), so you never know what's in the next sector, and that's really dangerous when you are carrying a Photon Torpedo! Yikes! It does come with a combat scanner which, when you start to attack another ship, shows you how many shields the other guy has, but this is not really a great feature as this is not an attack ship. I see this ship only as a Photon carrier for evil players. 4) Battleship: TE=55, 4 turns, 80 holds. Not the best trading ship, -------------- but has excellent fighting odds at 1.6 to 1. It comes with a built-in Combat Scanner which shows how many shields your victim has when you attack. And with it's large fighter and holds capacity, it's probably pretty good for players who are just learning and are not going to be using all their turns each day anyway. Due to the fighting odds of this ship, it's hard to get killed in one! A perfect ship for casual players. 5) Corporate FlagShip: TE=84, 3 turns, 85 holds. A decent trading ---------------------- ship, and it has t-warp capability, which makes it OK for t-warp colonizing, if you can't get an ISS. Only the CEO of each corporation is permitted to use one of these though. It comes with a Combat Scanner, to tell you how many shields your victim has when you attack. 6) Colonial Transport: TE=61, 6 turns, 250 holds. In spite of it's ---------------------- huge cargo capacity, it's high number of turns needed to move, makes it a poor trading ship. It cannot take ANY type of scanner, so you're always flying blind, and it's too damned expensive to by the holds. This ship is useful only for one single purpose, planet trading. More on this later. 7) CargoTran: TE=78, 4 turns, 125 holds. A so-so trading ship, but ------------- poor fighter capacity, and lousey combat odds, and real expensive to buy the holds. A poor choice, unless you just wanna play out your turns very quickly. 8) Freighter: TE=100, 2 turns, 65 holds. Reasonable holds capacity, ------------- and 2 turns to move, makes it THE BEST trading ship. It can carry a holoscanner for exploration, and it's cheap. Page 16 9) Imperial Starship (ISS): TE=93, 4 turns, 150 holds. A good trading --------------------------- ship, heavily armed, great fighting odds, can carry the Photon Torpedo (max of 5), and has T-warp capability. This is the IDEAL ship for colonizing. A wonderful ship, but it requires an Imperial Commission to be able to get into one of these. They're expensive, and definitely worth every cent. 10) Havoc Gunstar: TE=52, 3 turns, 50 holds. Not a trading ship, but ------------------ good for evil players for use in robbing ports. Nicely armed. This is the only ship with T-warp capability that is available to players lacking an Imperial Commission and who are not CEO of their corporation. 11) Starmaster: TE=71, 3 turns, 73 holds. A reasonable trading ship, --------------- reasonably armed, etc. No T-warp. Get a Constellation instead. 12) Constellation: TE=76, 3 turns, 80 holds. Reasonable trading ship, ------------------ very much like the Starmaster, but 10% extra holds capacity. No t-warp capacity, but not a bad ship. 13) T'Kasi Orion: TE=93, 2 turns, 60 holds. Very simmilar to the ----------------- Freighter, but has density scanner only, no holoscanner, so is not suitable for exploration. Slightly better fighter capacity than the Freighter, but slightly less efficient trader. Go for the Freighter instead. 14) Tholian Sentinel: TE=36, 4 turns, 50 holds. Not a trading ship, --------------------- it's only single purpose is to sit in a sector and protect your corp's planets, especially when you're not online. While in a sector with your corp's planets, it defends at 4 to 1 odds, and when loaded with 4k shields, and 2,500 fighters, it will take an invader in an ISS about 17,333 fighters to destroy it. Not bad when you're still poor. This defense works any time the ship is occupied by a corp member, whether online or not. No t-warp. 15) Taurean Mule: TE=88, 4 turns, 150 holds. An OK trading ship, but ----------------- lousey combat odds, small fighter capacity, and no holoscan or t-warp. Page 17 16) Interdictor Cruiser: This thing takes 15 turns to move, enuff said! ------------------------ Forget trading. If the player is in the game, the interdictor beam will hold fast any other ship that comes into it's sector, and can then be captured at leisure, like a spider eating a fly. But, when the player is not in the game, the interdictor feature does NOT function. Also, the interdictor feature does not work in FedSpace. One possible use, planetary defense, as it can hold up to 100,000 fighters. The huge fighter capacity makes it ideal for large-scale invasions, as it can probably withstand the brunt of shielded Q-Cannons and survive. 17) Ferrengi Assault Trader: TE=79, 2 turns, 50 holds. Much like a ---------------------------- Freighter or T'Kasi Orion, but not as many holds for trading, and no scanner at all, yikes! Sell this thing quick! 18) Ferrengi Battle Cruiser: TE=72, 3 turns, 75 holds. Sort of like a ---------------------------- Starmaster or Constellation, but not as good. They do have a nice resale value at Star Dock. Sell em! 19) Ferrengi Dreadnought: TE=66, 4 turns, 100 holds. Poor trader. ------------------------- No t-warp. Sell it. However, evil players may wish to consider it as an invasion ship, as it *CAN* carry a single Photon Torpedo! If only it had T-Warp! Note on Ferrengi ships: These cannot be bought at Stardock, they can only be captured from a Ferrengi. This is easily done, but the Ferrengi carry Grudges! Which means that this particular Ferrengi will come and find you later in the game. Also, this alerts the Ferrengi Overlord who will raid the hell outta you after the game is about 2 months along. NEVER molest a Ferrengi ship! 20) Ferrengi Scorpion: ACK! This ship is piloted by the Ferrengi ---------------------- Overlord, a game generated character, much like Captain Zyrain, and you cannot harm or capture it in any way. If you fire a Photon Torpedo at it, your torpedo will come right back at you, and YOU will get hit, and lose all your turns! The Ferrengi Overlord character first appears in the game at around Day 45 or so. It's main function so far appears to be raids on player's sectors, in a totally random fashion. The Overlord T-Warps into any random sector, and if player's fighters or mines are there, they are immediately converted to Ferrengi fighters and mines. You receive a message from your fighters stating that they have been disrupted. This ship type is a very recent addition to the game, and is not affected by Level 6 Planets, fighter attacks, mines, etc. Page 18 21) Federation Starship: These cannot be owned by a player, they are ------------------------ only used by the 3 Federals. They are indestructable, and trying to attack them will get you killed, no matter what you are driving, or what armaments you may have. SHIP SUMMARY: ------------- The best trader is the Merchant FREIGHTER. It has every capacity except t-warp or photon torpedos, and is the trading ship of choice, especially for small players. Nothing, but nothing can out-earn this type of ship in trading. It's also great for evil players doing sell/steal, or robbing. A great ship is the ISS, but it's expensive and requires a commission, and is therefore not available for evil players. Nothing beats this ship for colonizing, or for invasions. The CorpFlag is available to the CEO of any corp, either good or evil, and makes a decent trader, and can be used for colonizing, and by evil players for various crimes. Nice ship if ya cannot get an ISS. The Havoc Gunstar is good for Evil players for robbing. The Ferrengi Dreadnought is a good photon attack ship for evil players. Another choice is the Constellation, a decent trading ship, reasonably armed with nice cargo capacity. It's only flaw is the lack of T-Warp. New players might consider the Battleship, a so-so trader, but has large cargo capacity, and heavily armed. It is really hard to kill this thing. If you're tired of getting killed everyday, go for one of these, it's got 1.6 to 1 combat odds...nice. It lacks T-warp capacity. Page 19 Planet Types ============ There are several types of planets available, but some are worthless, and the good ones should be used for certain purposes only. Here is some info on the useful types: Mountainous Type: This type builds citadels and upgrades them faster ----------------- than any other planet type, and is useful for making large amounts of fighters, and fuel ore which fuels the cannons. All colonists should be working on fuel ore. Most efficent production is with 20,000 colonists per product. This is the best type of planet to start with in the MBBS Version of Tradewars. But, in the DOS version only, landing frequently on this planet type causes colonists to die, and landings must be kept to an absolute minimum. In the MBBS Version this is not a problem, and makes a perfect home planet. Oceanic Type: This type produces organics just as fast as mountainous ------------- types produce fuel ore, and is the only planet type suitable for producing product intended for sale. All colonists should be working on organics, and maximum production is with 100,000 colonists per product. Fighter production is nearly as good as on a mountainous planet. Volcanic Type: This type produces basically fuel ore and nothing else. -------------- Not much on fighter production either. It's main value is as a quasar-cannon. Colonists on it produce twice the fuel ore that mountains do, and it can store up to 1 million units of fuel ore. This makes it just about impossible to invade. It does have 1 serious drawback, its colonists tend to die each time one lands on the planet, and also when one does a Corporate Planet Scan (command T L). Keep landing down to an absolute bare minimum, AND put 25% of the colonists on equipment production (where they do nearly nothing), and the other 75% on fuel ore. This reduces colonist deaths very nicely. Maximum efficiency is with 50,000 colonists on fuel ore, but don't forget an extra 12,500 colonists on equipment. And don't be tempted to pick-up the bit of equipment they produce, as this will kill more colonists! They are extremely slow to upgrade, but worth it. Page 20 Earth Type: Pretty much worthless in the MBBS Version of Tradewars, ----------- they produce product slowly, and can produce nothing that cannot be produced much better on another type of planet. It's capacities are rather low. Some folks use them to produce equipment, but that same number of colonists could make double the money working on organics on an oceanic planet type. However, in the DOS Version of Tradewars, you don't want to use a Mountainous Planet as a home base because of colonist die-off, so an Earth Type is the planet of choice for a home base for sleeping in the citadel and for the treasury funds. The fact that colonists don't die on this type makes it fine for landing on. Just don't try producing equipment on this planet. Any equipment needed for upgrades is best bought at a port and brought in. The optimal number of colonists is 15,000 and all should be on fuel ore. Vaporous/Gaseous Type: There are rumours that this type produces ---------------------- planetary shields, or other unusual products, but my personal experience shows that nothing at all is produced on this type. However, it will upgrade to a very small interdictor planet 3 days sooner than the mountainous type which is a possible consideration. Desert Wasteland: Same Q-Cannon capabilities, ore production and ----------------- colonist capacity as a Mountainous type, but upgrades much slower. Worthless. Glacial Type: Nothing much produced, small capacities, worthless. ------------- Upgrading The Planet's Citadel: ------------------------------ To upgrade a planet to various levels of citadel defense requires colonists and products. Please note that it is not necessary to leave the colonists on the planet while waiting for the construction to be completed. You can trigger the construction, and immediately move the colonists to another planet. One handy thing to know about the MBBS version of TW, is that even though it takes 1 turn to move a load of colonists from one planet to another, but if you are already out of turns you can still move them at no turns! Neat eh? Here's a chart of the products and colonists needed for each of the useful planet types: Page 21 Mountainous Type: Level Cols Ore Org Equip Days Total Days ---------------------------------------------------------- 1 400 150 100 150 2 2 2 1400 200 50 250 5 7 3 3600 600 250 700 5 12 4 5600 1000 1200 1000 8 20 5 7000 300 400 1000 5 25 6 5600 1000 1200 2000 12 37 Oceanic Type: Level Cols Ore Org Equip Days Total Days ---------------------------------------------------------- 1 1400 500 200 400 6 6 2 2400 200 50 300 6 11 3 4400 600 400 650 8 19 4 7000 700 900 800 5 24 5 8000 300 400 1000 4 28 6 7000 700 900 1600 8 36 Volcanic Type: Level Cols Ore Org Equip Days Total Days ---------------------------------------------------------- 1 800 500 300 600 4 4 2 1600 300 100 400 5 9 3 4400 1200 400 1500 8 17 4 7000 2000 2000 2500 12 29 5 10000 3000 1200 2000 5 34 6 7000 2000 2000 5000 18 52 Earth Type: Level Cols Ore Org Equip Days Total Days ---------------------------------------------------------- 1 1000 300 200 250 4 4 2 2000 200 50 250 4 8 3 4000 500 250 500 5 13 4 6000 1000 1200 1000 10 23 5 6000 300 400 1000 5 28 6 6000 1000 1200 2000 15 43 Page 22 HOW TO MAKE THE BIG BUCKS ========================= The usual way to make money is by trading, or if you are evil then thru various crimes. But, there are better ways that require much less work. 1) The Veggie Business. Have an Oceanics Planet located in a sector ------------------------ with a port that buys organics. When the port is at 100%, port and use the (N) Negotiate command, and sell all the organics in one shot. You get the 100% price in the MBBS Version, and it takes only a single turn to sell the whole lot. (In the DOS version, it's best to port and sell the organics one shipload at a time). After doing this a few times, you will have enough cash to upgrade the port to it's full capacity, namely 32,000 organics. Then, you can sell 32k at a time, which comes to over 2.5 million credits. Not bad for 1 turn, eh? You will need quite a few colonists to do this. Home-built ports offer better prices than natural ones. 2) Planet trading. Take a planet with Twarp capability, and move it to ------------------- the nearest port. Using a ship with large holds capacity, buy everything that port sells, regardless of price, right down to the last unit. It's good to start at a port that sells both organics and equipment, so that you will have a nice inventory on the planet for sale later. Then, move the planet to any other port, and buy up everything it has, and (N)egotiate everything off the planet that the port buys. Just keep doing this until you run out of turns. Trading the ports right down to zero would normally not be profitable, but remember, a round trip trade this way takes only ONE turn, instead of the usual 8 or 10 turns for normal ship trading. It's easy to make 4-5 million a day like this. Be sure to NEVER sell fuel ore, and buy more whenever possible, because it does take 400 units of fuel to move a planet one sector. Oh, and the best ship to use for this is the Colonial Transport with 250 holds. Nothing else can even come close. It takes a long time to use up your turns this way, but it will quickly bring in enough money to upgrade ports for method 3, below. 3) Super-Port Planet Trading. Have a pair of ports in your tunnel, ------------------------------ preferably home-built. One buys equipment, the other sells it. Both should buy organics if possible. Upgrade the equipment to the max 32,000 units. Once the port is at 100%, bring a twarping planet to the equipment seller, and buy half of it's 32k units of equipment, and (N)egotiate sell it next door. Also Page 23 dump all the organics at the same time there! Upgrading ports this way is a large investment because it takes about 2.7 million to fully upgrade the equipment at each port, and another 1.5 million to fully upgrade the organics, but the payback is huge! Buying 16k units of equipment costs about one million, and 64 turns in a ColTran, you will make about 1.2 million clean profit when you sell it. And 128 experience points (XP) in 64 turns, which isn't bad either. Very little fuel ore is used with this technique. The reason that home-built ports are best is becuse they usually have much better prices than existing ones. I usually blow up the existing ports and build new ones. And, the reason for buying only half the equipment available, is that the price is better on the first half, so take it now, and wait a few days for the port to regenerate, then come back again. 4) Good & Evil Alliance: While I always play "good", I always either ------------------------ play a second character, or have a friend that is playing "evil" with me. Actually, for best efficiency (aka: greed), you need two evil guys. Once my sector & tunnel defenses are very very secure, and I control a large number of sectors, say a dozen or more, and have filled the area with fully upgraded SBB and SBS pairs of ports, I start my co-operative robbing venture. I do the super-port planet trading exactly like this: When all my ports are at 100%, I take an Oceanic Planet, bulging with 100k colonists, all producing organics, and take it to the first port-pair, and sell them both 32k of organics. Then, I buy 16k equipment, and sell it next door, then move on and do the same at all the other port-pairs. A few days later, the equipment is back up to 100%, though the organics is still only up to 50%, so I make a second trip around, buying and selling equipment, but NOT selling organics. Once this second trip is done, the evil guys do their work. They go to each equipment selling port, and rob it blind. Fastest way is to port and rob slightly less than 90% of the total credits. Oddly enough, in spite of the average 2 million credits available to rob, the often manage a successful steal, if it's done before they do any other robbing elsewhere. XP points don't seem to matter and I have managed to rob 12 million credits in one shot, with only 100 xp, sitting in a pod! Go to each of the ports in turn, and clean them all out. You'll get busted at 2/3rds of them, but make HUGE amounts of credits at the successful ones. Once the evil guy has been to each of the ports, then it's time for the other evil guy to come in, and do the same thing at all the ports where the first guy got busted, thereby cleaning 1/3rd of them out. I find that one cycle for each guy is all their luck will allow, but I do try it again one cycle per day, until it's time for the good guy to start planet trading again when the ports are all 100% again. This procedure requires careful record keeping for each port as to who is busted there, etc., but the rewards are astonishing, and it takes only 10 minutes a day! Page 24 It's important that you follow the exact order as described above for these reasons: Buying the equipment increases the amount available to be robbed. Selling organics to that port, greatly reduces the amount available for robbing. So, build the amounts up by buying equipment, and get it all robbed out first, before you start dumping organics there. Better yet, if your supply of organics is limited, sell it ONLY at the SBB ports, where the evil guys aren't gonna be robbing anyway. It's fine to sell organics at SBS ports, where the credits have already been robbed out. How do the evil guys travel around my tunnel, and not get killed by my cannons, mines, etc? They live in my tunnel, and only one sector, way in the back is safe for them. This sector contains only a single Level One planet, where they can dump the cash they made, so I can go pick it up later. The planet is owned by the good guys, but being only Level One, the evil guys can land on it. The evil guys have a corp-owned ship with good transporter range, located in each sector that has a robbing port, and they simply transport from ship to ship. No ship ever actually moves anywhere, so the cannons never do shoot at them. They can even enter a 100% Haz this way, unarmed, and never be harmed. Neat, eh? Heh! ==================================== DEFENSE STRATEGY & DEFENSIVE WEAPONS ==================================== There are many ways to defend your home sectors, and the best way to do it is a combination of all of them. Here are some of the available tools at your disposal: 1) Mines. These cost 1,000 credits each, and you can leave them in ---------- your sector, up to a maximum of 250 mines per sector. When an invader enters the sector, approximately 1/2 of the mines present will explode, and cause about 15 damage points for each mine that exploded. If an invader enters your sector wher you have placed 250 mines, half will explode, causing the invader about 1,875 damage points. Please note, however, a Photon Torpedo fired by an invader will prevent the mines from exploding. Also, Ferrengi ships tend to stumble into the mines randomly, and set them off, wasting your mines, and angering the Ferrengi into seeking revenge! Page 25 2) Sector Fighters. You can leave fighters in the sector in one of -------------------- three different modes. Toll fighters will permit invaders to pay the toll, and drive right thru, not a good idea! Offensive fighters will automatically launch themselves at any intruder, after which they will be gone. This can waste your fighters on a Ferrengi stumbling into the sector, which angers that Ferrengi into seeking revenge later. The best way to deploy fighters in the sector is to make them Defensive. This will harmlessly keep the Ferrengi out at no cost you to, and if another player stumbles into the sector, he will have the option of retreating, thereby leaving your defenses intact! Therefore, sector fighters should ALWAYS be deployed as DEFENSIVE! If there is a planet in the sector, you are limited to 50,000 fighters, but if no planets are present you can leave a seemingly infinite number. 3) Navigational Hazard. Also known as NavHaz, or just Haz, this is ------------------------ asteroids and debris left over from a planet that exploded or a ship that was destroyed. Haz is measured in %. A 50% Haz means anyone entering that sector has a 50% chance of hitting it, and if he does hit, he will suffer 500 damage. A 97% Haz produces a 97% chance of suffering 970 points of damage. (A point of damage is 1 shield or 1 fighter). Any ship that is destroyed by the Haz, will add an additional 1% to the existing Haz. Each night, during the "BBS Cleanup" or "BBS Event" some of the Haz will disperse, generally it'll be reduced by 3%. The best way to build a nice large Haz that will remain large for a few weeks, is to build 30 or 50 planets in a single sector, and then use atomic detonators on 3-5 of them. This will get the Haz started, as each planet destroyed produces 10% Haz. Then, each night during the "BBS Cleanup", 2 of the planets will collide (as long as there are more than 5 planets left), and add 20% to the Haz. If there are only 6-12 planets in the sector, it is not definite that a collision will happen, but the probability goes up with the number of planets. Over about 12 planets, and a collision is pretty definite. A nice large Haz will definitely keep nosey competitors from snooping around, as they will lose 970 fighters just for the privlege of entering the sector. And, Haz is not used up by additional ships entering. "NavHaz, the gift that keeps on giving!" I find this to be an excellent way of keeping the competition out. 4) Tunnels: Locating your home base at the end of a string of sectors ------------ that has only 1 entrance, forces any invader to have to wade thru and face several sectors of all the nasty stuff you can afford to put in his way. The longer the tunnel, the better it is. I like to have tunnels be at least 5-6 sectors deep. Page 26 5) Corbomite Traps: An excellent "dirty trick". A Scout Maurader or a ------------------- Pod can NOT ever be captured, only destroyed. Naturally, if the ship is loaded with Corbomite, it will explode, and seriously damage or kill the attacker! Maximum Corbomite is 1,500 units, which costs 1.5 million credits, and will blow 30,000 fighters off of the attacker! Neat, eh? The Scout or Pod need not be occupied for this, an abandoned ship works as well. You can increase the chances by giving the ship a nasty name, perhaps something about your expected invader's Mom works real well! 6) Quasar Cannons: These are the biggest & nastiest weapon there is. ------------------ They use fuel ore on the planet, and shoot it at invading ships. See the section below on "Planetary Defenses" for some important considerations in setting these cannons up properly. 7) Photon Torpedos: These make an excellent defensive weapon, if you ------------------- happen to be on-line when the bad guys start crashing thru the walls. If a bad guy has no turns, then he's not going to be doing much of anything for awhile! So, if you see him, shoot the bugger, then laugh! You'll have until the top of the hour to do nasty things to him, before he can do anything much about it. His only safe option is if he has a planet of his own in the same sector, then he can land on it and the planet will take him out safely, even without turns. Of course, that also means the invasion is over for today. One neat thing, did ya know it's possible to shoot a P-Torp from inside the citadel? Yep....anyplace where you can get a "Computer" prompt, and it works quite nicely from total safety inside your citadel. You can shoot at them, and they can't shoot at you....which is how I much prefer it! Complete Defense Setup: ======================= The best defense is a combination of the above weapons. Here is the way I suggest you do it: 1) Location: You really must select your home sector FAR FAR AWAY from either Sector 1 or Stardock. Most beginners feel that it's good to be near the source of colonists, but this is an extremely heavily travelled area, and everyone will know you're there and whenever they get bored they will take a few pot shots at your defenses. This can get to be pretty expensive, and it always will doom you to failure. Best to be far away...out of sight, out of mind. Page 27 2) The first sector the invador sees should have a 97% NavHaz, and nothing else. He can see it's there, but he has no clue who it belongs to. 3) The next sector in should again have a 97% NavHaz, plus 2,000 defensive sector fighters. The sector fighters will keep any stumbling Ferrengi from entering, and accidentally wasting any mines you have farther in. No mines in this sector. 4) The 3rd Sector should have 2,000 defensive sector fighters, plus 250 mines. And eventually you should also build a large Haz there. If you can afford it, and have the room, you can duplicate this sector in the next few also. 5) Your home sectors and citadel planets should be behind all the above mentioned weapons. Planetary Defenses: =================== If you are sitting in the same sector as your planets, no one else can land on any of them, unless they destroy you first. So, the more fighters and shields you have on you, the better. Note: only occupied ships defend planets. One type of ship, the Tholian Sentinel, is very special in this function. It's fighters and shields will defend planets at 4 to 1 odds! It can carry 4,000 shields, plus 2,500 fighters, which is a relatively small investment, but it will take an invader in an ISS about 17,333 fighters to destroy! This is an excellent way to defend your planets at the beginning weeks of the game. Planets can be upgraded, and each higher level of citadel provides a new weapon: Level 1 Citadel: Provides really no defense. Any invader, or casual ---------------- visitor can land on this planet at will, and simply take away anything you leave on the planet. They can steal your fighters, products, colonists, and any money you leave in the citadel! Just don't do it! Page 28 Level 2 Citadel: Fighters left on this planet will try to prevent ---------------- anyone else from landing on it. These fighters can be offensive or defensive or some of each, as controlled by the "Military Reaction Level". Defensive fighters resist invaders at the best odds and give the invader the option of retreating, thereby leaving your fighters intact. ALWAYS set Military Reaction Level to ZERO! This makes the fighters totally defensive and produces the best odds. Level 3 Citadel: Quasar Cannon. A neat gadget that will automatically ---------------- shoot at invaders entering the sector, or trying to land. Shots use up fuel ore from the planet, so be sure you have LOTS of it. NEVER sell fuel ore for any reason! There are 2 type of cannon shots. Shots into the sector will use up 3 units of fuel ore for each point of damage to the invader. Shots at ships landing on the planet will deal two points of damage for each unit of fuel ore expended, which is 6 times as efficent on fuel usage as a shot into the sector. It is best to have several cannons together in the sector, so they can defend each other. I always have 5 cannons per sector, which is the maximum. When an invader enters the sector, the cannon on the lowest numbered planet shoots first. If the invader survives the shot, then the next higher numbered planet fires, and so on. If the invader's ship is destroyed, then any cannon that has not yet fired, will NOT fire at all, thereby saving it's fuel ore. This brings up a strategy point, of how large the shots should be. I like to set the sector level for the first planet very low, perhaps 5% or so, which will destroy small ships, and conserve fuel that way. The next planet is usually set to 15%, and the later ones at 30%. This way, the first planet takes care of little ships, and later planets don't even fire, thereby saving fuel. When larger ships enter, several or all of the cannons fire, each with succesively larger shots. After all, it's pointless to blow away all your fuel ore on a tiny little scout ship, when a fully loaded ISS will follow right behind it, and destroy the now unloaded cannons. Upon entering the sector, the cannons will fire, then you get a prompt for attacking the sector fighters. Cannons will shoot again, every time you shoot at the sector fighters, so try to nail them all in one shot. Please note that for reasons unknown, an atmosphere shot will be exactly half the percentage you set it to. Ask Gary why he did that! Level 4 Citadel: This is a planet you can move to another sector. ---------------- Doing this permits planet trading and many other useful options. It takes 400 units of fuel ore for every sector of distance moved. Page 29 Level 5 Citadel: Planetary Shields. These shields will prevent photon ---------------- torpedos from disabling your quasar cannons. Planetary Shields are actually the same as ship shields, and you must buy them and dump them in the citadel. An invader must destroy all the shields before he can even SEE how many fighters are on the planet, which he will have to destroy next! Planetary shields defend at 22.5:1 odds divided by the attacking ship's combat odds. For example, an ISS needs about 15,000 fighters to destroy 1,000 planetary shields. Level 6 Citadel: Planetary Interdictor. This prevents any invader's ---------------- ship from ever leaving the sector! Any attempt to leave sends the victim a message "You are being held fast by the Interdictor" and you just don't move. No cannon shots happen, but you cannot leave. Nasty, isn't it? Think of it as a "Roach Motel, roaches check in, they don't check out!" Page 30 ================= INVASION STRATEGY ================= No two invasions are ever the same, they vary greatly, depending on what your objective is, and whatever goodies the defender has left for you. Invading minor defenses is no problem, just load up on fighters, and drive in and shoot everything in sight! When invading sectors containing shielded planets and interdictor planets, you must plan very carefully in advance, and it's almost required to have confederates going in with you. Major Invasions always include the likelihood of ketting your ship blown up. In fact, it's just about guaranteed! So, plan for this to happen. In such cases, it is critical to properly deal with every single defensive weapon in turn, and remove ALL of them, sector by sector, as you advance. This way, when you get blown up and your Pod bounces out, you won't get killed in NavHaz or mines left laying around. Here are a few things to consider when you invade someone: 1) Enemy Players: NEVER invade someone that is online while you're ----------------- doing it! It nearly always guarantees failure. Always remember, "it's hard to drain the swamp while you're up to your butt in alligators!" 2) Space Mines (Armid): Mine disrupters cost 6,00 credits each, and you ----------------------- can carry 10 at a time. Each disrupter will destroy an average of 6 or 7 enemy mines. This means 4 loads of them are needed to destroy a sector with 250 mines in it. But do it. Never leave enemy mines laying around. Firing a P-Torp will disable mines for the duration of the Torp. 3) Navigational Hazard: Building new planets will suck up the navhaz ----------------------- nicely, at 10% for each planet built. 4) Limpit Mines: You can pretty much ignore these, but be sure to have ---------------- them removed at stardock as soon as possible. Page 31 5) Sector fighters: It's best to kill these, but a P-Torp will disable ------------------- them. The sector fighters do not fight well, so it's economical to kill them, preferably with a high-combat-odds ship. One consideration though, Q-Cannons will shoot at you every time you shoot at enemy sector fighters, so you may wish to use a Photon Torpedo to bypass them instead, and kill them later after the enemy planets are invaded. 6) Quasar-Cannons (Level 3): When about to enter a sector with planets ---------------------------- in it, you should assume the presence of a quasar-cannon on a planet. So, it's best to fire a P-Torp first and jump in, and use your planet scanner to tell what's on the planets. The cannon will not fire while the P-Torp field is still active, even if you land. After the P-Torp field is gone, the cannon will not fire until you attempt to land on it. If you exit the game, and re-enter, the cannon will fire. 7) Shielded Quasar-Cannons (Level 5): P-Torps have no effect on these, ------------------------------------- and if you enter the sector, they will definitely fire, so you will need a well armed ship so as to survive the damage. Having survived the cannon shots in the sector, you can attempt a landing. As you land, the cannon on the particular planet you are landing on, will shoot instantly at you, and if you survive, you will see the number of shields to be destroyed. You may take several shots at the shields and the cannon will not shoot while you destroying the shields, unless you leave the planet and re-land. During this landing, you have no information at all about what's on the planet, except for the number of shields to be destroyed. Once you have destroyed the very last shield, the cannon will fire again, and you will then see how many fighters you must kill to land. And, the cannon will fire again, with each volley you fire at the planet's cannons, so it's best to fire large volleys. If you are expecting a large number of fighters to be on the planet, it might be good to leave the last few shields intact, and leave the planet and reload your fighters, to be sure you survive another cannon shot. Then land again, survive the q-cannon shot, kill the last few shields, and then take the next cannon shot, and then start mowing the planet's fighters. It's a lengthy process, and takes a huge bunch of fighters to survive it! 8) Planetary Fighters: P-Torps do not affect these, regardless. You ---------------------- must kill them using your own fighters. Defensive planetary fighters fight at 3 to 1 odds divided by the attacking ship's odds, so it's an expensive prospect. Planetary Offensive fighters fight less hard, at 2:1 divided by ship's odds. Page 32 9) Planetary Shields: Shields defend at 22.5:1 odds, divided by the --------------------- attacking ship's odds. For example, an ISS needs 15,000 fighters to destroy 1,000 planetary shields. 9) Interdictor Planets (Level 6): These are really nasty, because once --------------------------------- you're in the sector, your ship will never leave unless you manage to take over the planet. But you still have options. P-Torps have no effect here. A major priority here is to clear away all sector fighters, and place one or many of your own. This way, your team mate can bring in your own T-Warping planet, and you can land, and you, him and your planet can leave inspite of the enemy interdictor planet. If the quasar-cannons manage to blow up your ship, then your escape Pod will bounce out of the sector as long as the sector next door is empty of fighters. Naturally, if your Pod hits mines or haz, you're dead for the day. A third way to leave is to beam over to another nearby ship, and abandon your invasion ship. Then you can bring in another heavily armed ship and have another crack at it. 10) Missile Cruiser: Perhaps you have decided not to remove all the -------------------- defenses sector by sector, and feel you can drive thru. But, you cannot carry any P-Torps into sectors containing navhaz or mines, as the P-torps will explode inside your own ship! So, you tow an unarmed Missile Frigate into the haz and then beam into it. Fire the torp, then beam back into the larger ship and move to the next sector. 11) Imperial StarShips (ISS): The ISS can carry up to 5 P-Torps, and ----------------------------- 50,000 fighters and has 1.5 to 1 fighting odds..nice! Also, it has T-Warp, and a 15 hop transporter beam range. Lastly, its capacity to carry 10 genesis torpedo is just enough to clear away 1 sector of it's maximum navhaz. All this makes it the ship of choice for invasions. Better yet, have a fully loaded ISS, towing a team-mate in a 2nd fully loaded ISS. The one being towed never gets hit by cannons, NavHaz, mines or anything else, so he can carry a nice load of P-Torps safely! 10) Interdictor Cruiser: These make a nice invasion ship, as they can ------------------------ carry up to 100,000 fighters, and so can withstand a lot of damage. This is the ship most likely to withstand the shots from Q-Cannons. However, they cannot land on any planet, so you can't actually invade a planet with them. Drive the interdictor in, and take the cannon hit, while towing a teammate, or smaller ship, preferably a StarShip (ISS) or Corp Flagship, and then continue the Page 33 invasion in the smaller ship. The neat part here, is that the ship being towed does NOT get shot at by the Q-Cannons! (See the section on towing, very important here). Or, the Interdictor Cruiser can bring several loads of fighters into the sector and dump them, and leave them for your team mates to load up on. If you are attacking a planet with a HUGE Q-Cannon, you could try to land the Interdictor Cruiser on the planet. It won't actually land, but it will trigger an atmospheric Q-Cannon blast, thereby draining the cannon so that future shots are that much smaller. Expensive, but it works. 11) Moths in Invasions: Quasar-Cannons use a large amount of fuel ore ----------------------- for every shot. They are set to a percentage, so the 2nd time they fire will be a smaller shot. If the cannon was set to 50%, then the 2nd shot will be 50% smaller, so then it will be safer to bring in a ship carrying expensive armaments. It is critical to remove any enemy mines and all NavHaz before entering, so as to avoid getting your Pod blown up and being dead for the entire day. Driving in a junk ship as a sacrificial lamb is called "Mothing". 12) Spare Ships: It's a good idea to have a spare ship nearby, so if ---------------- you do get blown up and lose your attack ship, you will be able to beam into the spare, and continue on, or escape! 13) Bring a Twarp Planet: Once you have removed all sector fighters and ------------------------- put down one of your own, you can bring in one of your own defended planets, which will provide an excellent base for the operation. It will protect you from an enemy counter-attack, and you can reload on fighters from it. 14) Cleanup Afterwards: When you have managed to survive a landing on ----------------------- an enemy planet, you must Claim Ownership of it immediately. Best to make it Corporate, so it won't shoot at your team- mates! Any captured planets with T-Warp capability should be moved back to your home area, and added to your own defenses. Strip and destroy any planet that cannot be moved. The easiest way to do this is to bring in your own T-Warping planet and haul all product and colonists to your planet, and fly home. Never detonate a planet that has colonists on it, they will fiddle with the detonator and YOU will be destroyed along with the planet! If you are low on turns, haul all the fuel ore off the enemy planets, as much as turns allow, then haul colonists, which can be done using zero turns. This way you can steal as much fuel ore as your remaining turns allow, plus ALL the colonists. Page 34 ==================================== ALIGNMENT & EXPERIENCE-POINTS TRICKS ==================================== Each player has 2 scores, as shown on the scoreboard. The first number is your Experience Points (XP) and the 2nd number is your Alignment which shows how "good" or "evil" you are. There are some reasons you may wish to have either of these 2 numbers high or low. Here's a few: 1) FedSpace T-Warp: If you have an Imperial Commission, you can T-warp ------------------- your ship to any FedSpace sector, in one jump. This includes sector 1-10 plus Stardock. Players that have at least +500 alignment, may "apply" for the Commission at the stardock police station. 2) Imperial Starship: You need the Commission to purchase an ISS ship. --------------------- This means that Evil Players cannot purchase one. 3) FedSpace Safety: If you have a positive alignment AND you have LESS ------------------- than 1,000 xp points, then you cannot be attacked while you are in FedSpace, and you may safely park there at night without cloaking. 4) Crime: If you have a negative alignment greater than -100, then you --------- will be able to rob credits from ports and steal cargo from ports. Crime pays much better than trading! 5) Experience Points (XP) for good guys. This is totally worthless! ---------------------------------------- There is NO reason for a player with positive alignment to try to get high XP points. These points do you no good at all, and serve no purpose. The only consideration might be for "bragging rights", but it really means nothing. 6) Experience Points (XP) for evil players: This is critical for evil ------------------------------------------- players! Your XP controls how much product you may safely steal or how many credits you may safely rob from a port. See the section on "Playing Evil" later on. Page 35 How to Increase Experience Points: ================================== 1) Trading: When you get within 99% of the best price, you will get 2 ----------- XP. For 98% you get 1 XP point. If you manage to get 100.00% some ports will award you 5 XP points. This method of increase costs nothing, and produces a nice amount of cash in the process. 2) Triple Trading: Find a pair of trading ports where you can sell 2 ------------------ products and buy a 3rd, you can easily obtain 6 XP points each time you port. Best port pair is BBS-SSB, but any combo is ok, such as SBS-BSB or even SBB-BSS. Triple Trading generates somewhat less money than normal trading, but the XP points grow 50% faster. 3) Buy & Jettison Products: Port at a SSS port and buy a small quantity --------------------------- of each of the 3 products, then jettison them, and repeat. You need to buy just enough of each product so that each "best price" is at least 500 credits. Try for about 550 credits to be safe. This generates 6 XP for each cycle, and costs about 275 credits per XP point, but it does use a small amount of turns. 4) Planet building: This costs 20,000 credits each, and generates 25 ------------------- XP points. The cost is 800 credits per XP point. 5) Planet Busting: Build a planet at stardock, and detonate it. This ------------------ costs a total of 35,000 credits each and generates 75 XP points. The cost is 467 credits per XP point. 6) Port Upgrading: Use the "O" command to upgrade the quantity a port ------------------ produces. The cost is 3,000 credits per XP point if the upgrade is on Equipment, and costs 2,500 credits when the upgrade is Fuel Ore or Organics. The cost is very high, but you do get a lovely boost in XP when you build a Super-Port! 7) Killing other Players: You receive 10% of the victim's XP points ------------------------- when you capture or destroy them. You may also get whatever credits they are carrying, and if you capture their ship, you can sell it at stardock or keep it. BUT, this will leave you with an enemy, and it will generally cost you more in fighters than the value of the ship you capture. I don't recommend it. The victim must have at least 25 XP points for this to work. Page 36 8) Killing Aliens: Again, you receive the same benefits as when killing ------------------ other players, but you don't make an enemy. However, the Aliens generally have very little XP points, so the benefit is small. 9) Killing Ferrengi: DON'T DO IT! Yes, you can make some nice money -------------------- and points this way, but Ferrengi have long memory and they remember grudges! Later in the game, they will raid you! Also, they will notify the Ferrengi Overlord, who appears after the game is running about 6 weeks, and he will cause massive destruction in your home sectors. NEVER MOLEST FERRENGI SHIPS! 10) Kill Ferrengi sector fighters: This generates 15 XP points for each ---------------------------------- fighter you shoot at them. How to Reduce Experience Points: ================================ This is good to maintain your safety in FedSpace sectors. In the first weeks of the game, try to keep your XP points under 1,000. 1) Get killed: If your ship is captured or destroyed, and you eject to -------------- an Escape Pod ship, you lose 10% of your XP points. If you have already lost 2 ships today, and get killed a 3rd time, or if you happen to get killed in a Scout Marauder or in a Pod, you are Dead for the day, and lose 50% of your XP points. 2) Self-Destruct: costs you 50% of your XP Points, plus your ship. ----------------- 3) Get Mugged at Stardock: If your alignment is not above +100, you can -------------------------- try to enter The Underground at Stardock. First stash ALL of your money in the bank, then use the undocumented "U" command at stardock and guess the password WRONG on purpose. Guess wrong about 5 times in a row. The 4th time, you are mugged and all your money is stolen (you have none anyway), and the time after this, you lose 50% of your XP points. Repeating it after that will get you "Murdered at Stardock" and you lose your ship! This method is the best way to keep your XP Points under 1,000 to maintain FedSpace safety. Page 37 How to Move Alignment in the Positive Direction: ================================================ 1) Pay Taxes: If you enter the game, and happen to have over 100,000 ------------- credits on you, then you will be taxed 5% of the total. You will receive positive alignment in return for this, at the rate of one alignment point for every 1,500 credits of taxes paid. It's expensive, and this is not available to evil players. Only good guys pay taxes. 2) Kill Bad Guys: A "good" player will receive 50% of the alignment of ----------------- any evil alien or evil player he kills or captures. In order to earn alignment, the victim must have a minimum of at least 10 (maybe more) XP Points. 3) Post Federation Rewards at Stardock Police Station: You must be a ------------------------------------------------------ "good" player, or be evil with not more than -50 alignment in order to enter the police station. Once in, you may post a federation reward on any player that is already listed there, and you will receive 1 positive alighnment point for each 1,000 credits you post. This is the most economical way to do it. 4) Apply for commission: If you already have at least +500 alignment, ------------------------ you may apply for the commission at the police station, and you will automatically be approved and your alignment will be instantly boosted to +1,000 points. Each player may "apply" only ONE TIME, ever. 5) Port Upgrades: Upgrading a port moves your alignment upwards. The ----------------- cost is 6,000 credits per alignment point when Equipment is upgraded, and 5,000 credits per point when upgrading Fuel Ore or Organics. This is expensive, but it is available to evil players. 6) Build Planets: "Good" players receive 10 points of positive align ----------------- for each planet built. Very high ranking goodies receive 10 negative alignment points for building planets, not sure yet what score is needed for this to happen. Page 38 How to Move Alignment in the Negative Direction: ================================================ 1) Jettison Colonists: Fill your holds with colonists and jettison them ---------------------- into outer space. They scream nicely when you do this, and your alignment will drop 1 point for each colonist jettisoned. Try to separate out the cute earth-girl colonists, don't waste them, heh! If a "good" player continues to jettison colonists repeatedly, he will continue to lose alignment, until he turns evil, at which point he will no longer lose alignment. An "evil" player will have his alignment reduced this way only one time per day. It costs nothing. 2) Post Underground Hit Contracts: You may post an Underground Hit ---------------------------------- Contract and receive 1 point of minus align for each 250 credits. Very economical. However, to enter the Underground, you must either be "evil", or be "good" with less than +100 alignment. The "Underground" is completely undocumented, so here's the technique to enter it. Land on the StarDock, and type T for Tavern, then T for 'talk to the Grimy Trader'. Type the word "underground" and he'll say "I'll tell ye something about it, will ya pay?", and you say "No". Then he'll offer to sell you the password, and you buy it from him. Then say "bye" and exit the tavern. Type U for the Underground, and give the password, and you're in. 3) Kill Good Guys: When an evil player kills a good player or alien, ------------------ then the evil player will receive minus alignment, 50% of whatever positive alignment the victim had. The victim needs to have at least 10 XP points (maybe more) for this to work. 4) Build Planets: When evil players build planets, their alignment ----------------- moves 10 points in the negative direction. 5) Repeated Busts: If you already have at least -100 alignment, and can ------------------ rob & steal, go to any port, and rob or steal there. Then do it again at the same port, and you'll get busted for robbing the same place twice in a row. Continue porting there, and each time you do, your alignment will go another 5 points negative. Page 39 Special Alignment and Experience Points Considerations: ======================================================= 1) How To "Turn Evil". If your alignment is positive or slightly evil, ---------------------- and you need -100 to begin robbing & stealing, you may load your holds with colonists and jettison them. Repeat until your alignment is below 0, then go to the Underground and post enough credits (at 250 credits per point) to bring your align down to -100 or below. This is most economical way, and has NO effect on XP Points. 2) How to Obtain the Commission: Go to the police station and post federation rewards (at 1,000 credits per point) to reach +500 alignment. Then "apply" for the commission, also at the police station. 3) Obtain A Commission, Method Two: Get another player to "go evil", as ----------------------------------- described above. Once -100 evil, he can go to any port, and rob or steal from it. Then, repeat the crime at the same port, and get busted. Each bust results in -5 alignment points for this player. It uses 1 turn for each -5 align points, and in a game with 500 turns per day, this player can reach -2,500 alignment the first day. It's best done by running a script. Once the desired minus align is reached, the evil player should raise his XP points about 10, building/detonating a planet. Then disarm the "very evil" player and kill him. If he had -2,500 alignment, then you will get +1,250, and poof, you're commissioned without even applying, and no cost. 4) How To Turn Good Again: If you became evil accidentally, you want -------------------------- to become good again. If you are massively evil, the best way is to play your turns each day, and then before midnite, you can get killed in a Scout or Pod or self-destruct. This cuts your evil alignment in half. Port upgrades work too. When you've reached -50 alignment or above, then you may enter the police station, and cheaply post enough rewards to reach a zero or positive alignment. 5) How To Turn Good Again, Method Two: You can turn good again by -------------------------------------- killing another player that is MUCH more evil than you are. Page 40 6) Massive Positive Alignment: This is one of my favority "dirty" ------------------------------ tricks. Two players, one good, one evil, can make a deal, and they can kill each other 2 times every day for a coupla weeks. Each kill greatly boosts the alignment of the killer. After some time, the good guy will have +4,500,000 align, and the evil guy will have -4,500,00 alignment. This benefits the evil player, as he will get some of the good guy's XP Points. And it benefits the good player, who gets a huge positive alignment. Once the good guy has a very high + alignment, he is pretty much immune from attack by other good players, especially the real dangerous ones in an ISS with 50,000 fighters. I love to sit at stardock and goad goodie players in ISS's into attacking me. Every time they shoot at me, their alignment drops dramatically. As soon as their align has dropped enough to become evil, they will be KILLED by Captain Zyrain, and no cost to me! It is amusing to see how often this works! 7) Federation Rewards: One neat way to get a big positive alignment ---------------------- boost is to find an Evil player. First, go to the police station at Stardock, and be sure there is already a reward posted for this player, and that the reward is in the top 10. This makes it possible to add your own bounty to the existing one. If the Evil player's reward is listed in the top 10, you can post ALL your money on that player, and then go and kill him! This produces a lovely alignment boost, and you can claim all your money back after the kill. ============ PLAYING GOOD ============ 1) The Benefits of Playing Good: "Good" players have the option of -------------------------------- buying an ISS ship, which is the absolute best for colonizing and everything else. Staying good is your best option for staying alive, and building a massive empire. 2) Efficient, Profitable Trading: For trading port-pairs, the most --------------------------------- profit is available on ports where you deal only in equipment and organics. Some pairs are better than others and you should record the best ones, and return to them often as part of a regular trade route. It is most profitable to trade only until the available product percentage is high, and trade it down until one of the products is down to maybe 30% and no further. Page 41 3) Colonizing: Best done in an ISS ship using it's T-Warp capability. -------------- Load just enough fuel ore for the round trip, and T-Warp directly to Terra and back. This way, it takes only 10 turns for a round trip. Better yet, if you have a planet with a lot of fuel ore on it, you can build a planetary ship transporter. Using this option, load up only enough fuel for the return trip and not the trip out, and your round turn will cost you only 7 turns in an ISS..not bad! 4) T-Warp Trading: If no trading pair of adjacent ports is available, ------------------ then you can trade non-adjacent ports, using T-Warp, as long as fuel ore is available to be bought at at least one of the 2 ports, preferably both. Get enuff fuel ore for the trip and then fill your holds with product to be sold, and then T-Warp to the other port and repeat. This isn't as profitable as normal adjacent pairs trading, but it works nicely. Only the ISS ship is suitable for this. 5) Invasion Options For Good Players: "Good" players have the option of ------------------------------------- owning an ISS, the best invasion ship there is. It has the capability of carrying Photon Torpedos (P-Torps), and 50,000 fighters. No other ship is quite like this! ============ PLAYING EVIL ============ 1) The Benefits of Playing Evil: Evil players are denied the option of -------------------------------- owning an ISS ship, but they have the capability of committing crimes. And, like in real life, crime does pay if you do it right! An evil player can easily rob three times the profits as a good player can earn through trading. 2) Robbing Credits: Most ports have credits in them, available to be ------------------- robbed. For a player that wishes to do crimes pretty much continuously, you should never rob credits in an amount more than 6-7 times your XP Points. For example, if you have 3,000 XP, then you should rob no more than 21,000 credits each time. Never rob the same port twice in a row, always rob another one in between. Best is when you can locate two adjacent equipment selling ports...this is a great robbing pair. However, it is rare to find adjacent ports that both have available credits in them. Your have the option of T-Warping to a distant port and robbing there, instead of at an adjacent port. Crime varies throughout the week, it's difficult on Mondays and Tuesdays because you do get busted easier on those days. For Mondays I limit my robbing to 3 times my XP, and for Tuesdays I limit it to 5 times XP. Page 42 3) Stealing cargo: Another crime to make money is the sell/steal ------------------ routine. Find a pair of adjacent ports that both buy equipment. Bring a load of equipment in, and sell it at the first port. Then, port again and steal it back! Go to the other port and repeat. Twhelper will optimise this, and you will eventually get 5 XP Points each time you sell. Do not attempt to steal more holds of cargo than 1/50th of your XP points. If you have 3,000 XP, you may steal 60 holds of equipment, not more. Again, crime doesn't pay as well at the start of the week, you get busted more often. 4) Transporter Crime: Both crimes listed above use up a certain amount --------------------- of turns, just like trading does. For example in a Freighter, doing sell/steal loops uses up 8 turns round trip. Robbing uses up 6 turns. Most of this is used in moving from one sector to another. Instead of moving your ship to another sector after each crime, you can use the ship's transporter beam and go to another ship in the other sector and do the crime and beam back! This works great, and saves a ton of turns. Sell/steal uses 6 turns this way instead of 8, and robbing uses 4 turns instead of 6. The advantage is even greater if you are using a larger ship that needs 3 turns to move. Also, you won't need an adjacent pair of ports for this, you can be several hops apart, limited only by your ships' transporter ranges. 5) Getting Busted: If you do the crime, you'll have to do the time. You ------------------ will definitely get busted sooner or later, and probably you'll get busted regularly. When it happens, you will lose 10% of your XP Points (which is your safety level) plus some of your holds. If you rob no more than 6-7 times your XP, and steal cargo no more than 1/50th your XP, your XP will remain reasonably constant. Doing larger crimes is easy to do, but not in the long run. I have personally several times robbed 10 or 12 million credits in one crime, while sitting in an escape pod with only about 100 XP Points! But, don't plan on doing it regularly. There is quite a difference of opinion on how much to rob, and how many holds of cargo to steal, but I have done the math and kept records, and find that the levels mentioned above are the best ones to use for repeated crimes. Once a port has busted you, you can never go back there, even to trade, until the bust is cancelled. On Game Day 14, and multiples of 14, all busts are cancelled for everyone. The other way to clear a bust is if someone else gets busted there. This suggests that your friend can steal there until he gets busted, and then you can come back immediately. However, he clears the bust only if he gets busted fair and square. If he had simply done a crime there twice in a row, he will still get busted, but not clear your bust. Always record the sector of your last crime, so you don't go there next. Nothing wipes out this record, and you'll get busted if you do a crime at the same place twice in a row. Page 43 6) Triple Trading & Planet Busting: Evil players keep losing XP points ----------------------------------- each time they get busted, and this reduces their earning capacity. When you have gotten busted too much, it'll be time to boost your XP again. Triple Trading and Planet Busting are the best ways. Both techniques are described in the section under Raising Your XP. 7) The Effect of Minus Alignment: There's been some discussion on this, --------------------------------- and again, I've kept records. My conclusion is that having a really large negative alignment has utterly no effect at all. Once it's greater than the -100 needed to do crimes, it doesn't matter in the slightest, one way or the other. Having a large negative alignment does allow you to kill other evil players of less-evil alignment, and you will stay evil. 8) Invasion Options For Evil Players: Evil players lack the option of ------------------------------------- the ISS, but there are other ships available. The CorpFlagship isn't bad. One possibility is to use a CorpFlag and a Missile Cruiser carrying P-Torps. Once in position, fire the torp and jump into the larger ship and go in. The Ferrengi Dreadnought has a medium fighter capacity and can carry a Photon Torpedo, though these are not available until the Ferrengi decide to start building them. Lastly, the Interdictor Cruisor isn't bad here, as it can carry 100,000 fighters and therefore can most likely take whatever quasar-cannons can shoot at it and still survive. Page 44 ==================== MISCELLANEOUS TOPICS ==================== Here's a few things that didn't fit in elsewhere, check em out: 1) Towing: You can tow other player or an unoccupied ship from one ---------- sector to another sector, and with the new "Type 2" Twarp available, you can even do it via Twarp! However, there are towing restrictions. You cannot tow an player if he is in FedSpace. And, you cannot tow a player at all, if he has fighters on his ship. But, there's a way around this. Have the player put all his figs down in the sector, then lock your tow-beam on him. He then picks his fighters up again, and then you enter the sector number you're going to, and poof! The other player comes along with you, with all his fighters! Towing is handy during invasions, as the ship being towed is not damaged as it enters the sector. If the tow-truck ship is destroyed entering a sector, then the tow does not happen, and the ship or player being towed remains behind. The tow-truck must survive entering the sector. 2) Lost Comission: If you somehow lost your Imperial Comission, perhaps ------------------ by attacking a player of higher alignment, then you have a problem. This happens when your alignment dropped below +1,000. If you got your original Comission at the Police Station by (A)pplying, then you cannot do this again. You will have to raise your alignment back up to +1,000 by yourself (see above for techniques), but, we've found a loophole. If you still have over +500 alignment, just go to the Police Station and post a reward of 1,000 credits per point needed to bring you back up to +1,000 align. But, if you now have under +500 alignment, there's a cheaper way. Jettison Colonists, until you drop to -1 (very slightly evil), then go to the Police and post 501,000 credits and (A)pply again, and it works! Having your align hit evil seems to wipe out the fact that you were ever comissioned, so you can do it again. If you are stuck under +500 alignment, this method is cheaper. 3) Colonist Life Cycle: Colonists die from moving them around, loading ----------------------- and unloading products, landing on planets, etc. But there is also a Life Cycle for them. They breed and increase numbers every day for about a month, then the next month they tend to die off every day. It seems to be about a 2 month cycle. Page 45 4) Cloaks: You use these to be completely hidden from other players, ---------- when you are offline, however there are several flaws. A density scanner will detect them by showing a "Yes" in the "Anom" column at the far right. The anomoly is either a cloaked ship, or limpet mines. It's easy to tell the difference, as limpets scan a value of 2 per mine, whereas a cloaked ship scans zero. If you really wanna know who it is, shoot a Photon Torpedo into his sector, and see what pops up! The torpedo disrupts cloaks very nicely. 5) Limpit Mines: Somewhat handy little buggers, they stick to the hull ---------------- of any passing ship, and allow you to track their location. Limpets are automatically removed when one ports at stardock for a small fee. 6) Capturing Ships: When you want to capture an alien ship, or a player ------------------- who happens to be offline, you can simply just shoot them. But, each time you do, their ship automatically flees to the next sector, and this can use up a lot of turns chasing them. So, just put a single toll fighter in each adjacent sector, and you can wail away at the victim and he will never move, so you can shoot small shots and capture his ship instead of destroying it. When the victim is down to about 5 fighters, shoot only ONE at a time at him, and be patient. When capturing a Ferrengi, a single toll fighter is no enough, there must be a larger amount, generally equal to whatever the Ferrengi is carrying. Ferrengi ships tend to blow up very easily, and many carry corbomite, so a caution is needed here. 7) Evil Imperial StarShip: Evil players cannot have an ISS, and if a -------------------------- goodie is in one and turns evil, Captain Zyrain will destroy him. BUT, Zyrain does not enter a sector where there is a fighter, so as long as the Evil player stays strictly in sectors where his fighters are, he will remain safe forever. If the evil player happens to teleport to another ship, then he will not be able to get back into the ISS. 8) Helper Programs: Downloads & Links to Author's home pages are ------------------- included on my web page at: http://bbs.rockpile.com/someguy/download.htm Page 46 9) Density Scanner: All it does is give you a density number. Exactly ------------------- what does that number mean? It gives you a total of the density of everything in the sector being scanned. Here's a list of densities: 0 = Cloaked ship ('Anom' will show 'yes') 1 = Beacon 2 = Limpit Mine ('Anom' will show 'yes') 5 = One fighter 10 = Armid Mine 21 = Navigational Hazard of 1% 38 = Un-occupied ship 40 = Ship - either a player, alien or Ferrengi Assault Trader 50 = Blown up port 100 = Port, or Ferrengi Battle Cruiser or Ferrengi Dreadnought 500 = Planet 489 = Captain Zyrain, Federal 462 = Admiral Nelson, Federal 512 = Admiral Clausewitz, Federal ? = Ferrengi Overlord This is one way to tell how many invisible Limpit Mines are in a sector. For example, if the density scanner shows "Anom" = "yes" and a total density of 1046, and your holo-scan shows one planet (500) and one player (40) and 100 fighters (500), making a total density of 1040, which leaves 6 points unaccounted for. Those 6 points would be 3 Limpit Mines. There is always a possibility of a cloaked ship also, but you cannot tell for sure. A second example, take the same holoscan, but the density is 1040, as it should be, but the 'anom' is still set to 'yes'. That means a cloaked ship, for sure. It's time to go get a P-Torp! A cloaked ship shows zero density, but the other players may still find you by noticing the 'anom', and leave you a nasty surprise. But, what if you had left one Limpit Mine before cloaking? The other player would notice the density of 2, indicating the Limpit, and avoid going thru the sector, and not realize the possibility that you might be cloaked there! I'm willing to bet it'll work. 10) Ship Passwords: These passwords protect your ship from anyone ------------------- transporting into them. But, the only players that could do that anyway are your own Corp Members, so passwords protect you only from your own corp. But, if you need to be protected from them...what are they doing on your corp in the first place? Page 47 11) Attacking Un-Occupied Ships: Ships seem to have very low odds -------------------------------- against an attacker when they're not occupied. I haven't done enough testing to be sure on this, but it looks like even an un-occupied ISS has only 0.8 combat odds. 12) Sysop Settings: The default setup of the game provides a cramped ------------------- game where most of the resources will be completely used up in the first week, and many players will just drop out then. Here's a list of suggested settings for the Sysop to use: Sectors = 5,000 Port Density = double the default Port Regeneration = 4 days Turns per day = 800-1,000 Terran Colonists = 20,000 per day Initial Fighters = 101 Initial Credits = 30,000 Photon Torpedo = disabled until Day 30, then set to 20 seconds. Block SELL/STEAL = NO! These settings will provide a game where the resources might last indefinitely, and where players that get raided can start up from scratch again and not have to drop out. Such a game can last for many months. 13) Using Bugs: Due to it's complexity, the program has a history of ---------------- bizarre "features" that were never intended by the author, and there are many players who who do nothing but search for new bugs to use. It is never apparent that a bug has been found until the lowest ranking player in the game suddenly appears with a zillion fighters and blows away everything you worked months to build! This is just about the same thing as walking up to chess players and kicking their board over! If you discover a bug, please email details to this address: support@hvs.com 14) Revenge of The Ferrengi: Does it exist? Will they get revenge on ---------------------------- you, if you kill them? Much has been said and thought about this, and everyone has a story to tell of how the Ferrengi Overlord took over 50,000 of his fighters and 250 mines, and I have noticed that in the DOS version, the TEDitor does allow one to see the listings of Ferrengi grudges. Page 48 For years, I heeded the conventional wisdom, left the Ferrengi alone, and still got raided, even though I had not touched a single one of their ships. Conversely, in a recent game, I blocked Planet Ferrengal off with sector fighters, and all Ferrengi ships had to go thru the one avenue I'd left open for them, where they were promptly trapped by my Interdictor Planet. Several times a day, I would log on, and go murder them all. I was killing Ferrengi ships at the rate of 50 or 60 a day. and I never did get raided at all, though I did manage to get huge points for it! After much thought, my conclusion is that Ferrengi attacks are totally random, and that the Ferrengi don't really do anything in revenge. Can't tell what the future holds, but for now, ignore it. 15) Capturing The Ferrengi Scorpion: Rumour has it that you *CAN* ------------------------------------ capture the Ferrengi Overlord's ship, the Scorpion! Here is the capture method as it was described to me: Lay out a large field of single toll fighters, and wait until the Overlord disrupts one of them. Rush to the location, and bring a fully- loaded Interdictor Cruiser. Use the Interdicter Cruiser to prevent the Overlord's escape from the sector. While he is held there, your team- mate in a Ferrengi Dreadnought shoots fighters at the Overlord until the Scorpion is captured. It takes a very large number of fighters to accomplish this. The key is to attack in a Ferrengi Dreadnought which is the only ship capable of harming the Overlord. I have never seen this done, so I cannot swear that this works, but I have heard it from several sources, so I am itching to try it! I want a Scorpion! Watch my web-page for an update on this as soon as I know for sure. 16) Changes in Bust Clearing: In the MBBS version of the game only, in ----------------------------- versions 2.02 and 2.03, busts no longer stay around until the next multiple of Day 14. Now all but your very last bust are automatically cancelled each night at cleanup. Now you need only keep track of today's busts, and tomorrow morning toss your record, and keep track only of yesterday's "last robbed" sector, and "last bust" sector. ====================================================================== Page 49 Credits: >>> A Big Hug to Linda, for her many suggestions and additions and information she provided, and for being a great Corp-Mate! >>> A Big Hug to Marcy, for proof-reading, editing and additions, and especially for being an excellent opponent! >>> A Big Hug to Karen, for the constant abuse she gave me, dragging me back to my real job, so I didn't go bankrupt while writing this. >>> Thanks to all the players that emailed me their suggestions! Revision History: ---------------- January, 1996: Original version. May, 1997: This version. Major rewrite, greatly expanded, numerous errors corrected. Page 50 ================= Begging For Help! ================= This Player's Manual has taken me about a zillion hours of work to research and produce, and it is provided to you free of charge. But alas, my girlfriends are very expensive to own & operate, and I wonder how I'll be able to afford the medical bills when they all find out about each other, so I am taking this opportunity to beg you for some help. If you enjoyed this Manual, and found it informative and useful, you might consider stuffing one dollar or even five dollars into an envelope and mailing it to me at: > Fred Wehner > P.O. Box 2275 > Clifton, NJ. 07015 Once you've done this, your conscience will no longer bother you, and you'll sleep easy, secure in the knowledge that you have returned the favor, and encouraged me to keep up work on the Manual and expand it further. If you enclose your email address with the donation, I'll be more than pleased to notify you directly of any revisions to the manual, and of any new up-to-the-minute information that I've posted to my web-page. This way, you'll be the first one on the block to get the latest word! For a 10 dollar donation, I'll even be happy to respond to your email requests for additional info and I'll email you detailed answers and explanations to whatever questions you may have. Is that a deal or what? ====================================================================== Suggestions for additional topics are requested...please email me!