ÄÄÒÄÄ Ò Ò Â ÖÄÄÒÄÄ¿ º ÖÄÄ¿ ÖÄÄ¿ ÖÄÄ¿ · ÖÄ¿ º º ³ ÖÄÄ¿ ÒÄÄ¿ º º ³ ÖÄÄ¿ ÖÄÄ¿ Ò Â ÖÄÄ¿ Ò º ÇÄÄ´ º Ä¿ º ³ ÓÄ¿ º º ³ ÇÄÄ´ ÇÄÂÙ º º ³ ÇÄÄ´ º ³ º ³ ÇÄÄ´ º ÄÄÐÄÄ Ð Á ÓÄÄÙ ÓÄÄÙ ÓÄÄÙ ÓÄÄÐÄÄÙ Ð Á Ð Á Ð Ð Á Ð Á Ð Á ÓÄÄÙ Ð Á ÐÄÄÙ v1.1 ÒÄÄ¿ ÖÄÄ¿ ÒÄÄ¿ ÇÄ º ³ ÇÄÂÙ Ð ÓÄÄÙ Ð Á ÖÄÄÒÄÄ¿ Ò Ò Â º ÒÄÄ¿ ÖÄÄ¿ ÒÄÄ¿ ÒÄÄ¿ º º ³ ÖÄÄ¿ ÒÄÄ¿ ÖÄ¿ ÄÄÄ¿ ÖÄÄ¿ ÖÄÄ¿ ÄÄÄ¿ º ÇÄÂÙ ÇÄÄ´ º ³ ÇÄ º º ³ ÇÄÄ´ ÇÄÂÙ ÓÄ¿ ÖÄÄÙ º ³ º ³ ÖÄÄÙ Ð Ð Á Ð Á ÐÄÄÙ ÐÄÄÙ ÓÄÄÐÄÄÙ Ð Á Ð Á ÓÄÄÙ ÓÄÄÄ ÓÄÄÙ ÓÄÄÙ ÓÄÄÄ v1.03 and v1.03d only.. "The winds of Hell, have a sulphur smell," Reads a card from the late Iago. "And the brownish haze, on the warmer days, "Reminds me of Chicago.." -Jim Bianchi (Iago) sysop, Eclectic Garbanzo BBS (707) 539-1279 o o o I'd like to acknowledge (among others) Joel Downer, Albin Gersich, Fred Polli, Dan Roseen, Leonard Adolph, Steve Genardini, Stephen Whitis, John Warfin, Dave Myers, Woody Weaver, Jim Pittman, Matt Bush, Eugene Hung, Kris Lewis, David White, Nancy Durbin, Jason Boyd, Carol Barela, Carolyn Stoffel, Mark Cothram, Ed Kammerer, Mike Magero, Pierre Tourigny and, of course, Gary and Mary Ann Martin, the author(s) of TradeWars 2002. I'd like to thank you one and all for providing much of the mat'l for this file and for helping to make TradeWars a most entertaining diversion. This file is an updated version of the original Iago's War Manual and should replace it. Much of what follows was obtained from the files TWTIPS12, TWINFO, and from monitoring the FIDO and RIME TradeWars conferences. And from playing the game itself. ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ CONTENTS: History of the game Bugs in the game Ferrengi Frequently asked questions Planet cloning bug Tips 'n tricks Align and xp changes On the use of bugs Reference section Keeping an evil ISS Mapping the universe Macro pgms ("scripts") Suggested tactics Attacks/invasions The 5xp sell/steal cycle Ship selection Colonists Afterword ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ [ History of the game ] ÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛ The current final release of TradeWars 2002 is v1.03d. Many sites are still running v1.03; this older version has many ..ah, bugs, in it that are considered to be extremely destructive to game play, most notably the inf- amous planet cloning and multiple colonist jettisoning bugs. v1.03d fixed both of these in the course of improving the DESQview timeslicing. The new v1.03d mods are supplied as an archive containing only the four executable files: TEDIT.EXE and TEDIT.OVL and TW2002.EXE and TW2002.OVL. Since there is no player data stored in these files, they can be installed (dropped in) over a running game with no loss of player assets or points. --- - by Carol Barela: First I would like to give you a brief history of the Trade Wars games. This will help you and others understand where the game has been and where it is going. Trade Wars first came into being as a programming assignment for the Unix system. (Authors unknown.) Much like the great old DND game Moria first came about. Then it was ported over to the IBM world and Chris Sherrick and Alan Davenport had a go at the game and we had TW 500 and TW 1000 (there may be a few other numbers in here...memory fails me at times). These games were the jewels of BBS door games. Everybody played them. BTW, the style of play in all of these games remains pretty much the same, the look, feel and playability. This very echo used to be filled with information on these early games. Then for some reason Chris and Alan parted ways. Chris teamed up with John Morris and they have gone on to TW 1114 (I think is the last version number). They have many features new to the game, multi-node play, etc. But the game still retains the TW look. Alan Davenport came up with Yankee Trader. That game was also in the TW tradition and also had the same playability. Only this time instead of battling the evil Cabal, you had the Xannor after you. Alan's game was a big hit, and still is in many parts of the country. He is still upgrading and improving the game and his latest version is YT35. Alan's game Yankee Trader soon took over this [FIDO] echo. It reigned surpreme for a long time. Until Gary Martin's version, TW2002, hit the BBS's. This game too, had some improvements and captured the fancy of all the TW and YT players that it soon took over this echo. But like all the others before it, it had the same look, feel and playability of the orig- inal Trade Wars game. His evil alien race were the Ferrengi. He added planet defenses and a different way of moving planets, and some nice ship types. All in all a nice improvement upon the game. Now this game holds the attention of the echo. So to answer your question, all of the above are the REAL Trade Wars. None of them are clones, just natural progressions of one of the finest space/ war trading strategy games. The credit for concieving this great game goes to some anonymous programmers who are more than likely stockbrokers some- where with no time or thought to what they started. Everyone else has made improvements. Even Gary Martin, who DID NOT CREATE THIS GAME, only improved upon the original concept. The game you are asking about is TW2002, and the latest version of it is v1.03d. Gary Martin may or may not finish this beta version (v2.0) he is slowly and reluctantly working on. And from what I hear in this echo is considering reneging on his one time registration fee, and perhaps going to charge for this new version. Tis not enough that he let us all sit here for 2 years waiting for an updated game (read the docs). Or that he felt an obligation after getting so many $$$'s in registration fees for the game that he would not or perhaps could not fix the over 100 bugs in the game. Must stop now, or I shall say something that perhaps I should not...why burst your bubble. Anyway I hope that answers your questions about Trade Wars, who created the game, where it has been, and where it is going. --- - by Albin Gersich (on v1.03d) When Dan Roseen was switching to a multinode system using DESQview he contacted Gary about DV support in TW2002. He did not want to run any doors on his system that did not support DV timeslice sharing. Gary sent him version 1.03d. This was many months before the PC bug was known. In the summer of 1992 the TW council was formed. Dan and I were in it. In August of that year the PC bug became known to the council. Experimenting revealed it was fixed in 1.03d. Dan contacted Gary (and possibly Kris Lewis). Gary no longer had that version. He did not even save the source code for that version. Since Dan had been running it for a while without problems Gary gave his approval for it to be released. Dan felt it would not be appropriate to distribute the file without any information so he prepared the 103DNOTE.TXT file. He reset the time stamps of the files to an August date, prepared the archive for distribution, made it available on his board, and uploaded it to Gary on Castle Ravenloft. It was quickly distributed among the council members and annoucements were placed in the Fido TW echo. --- - by Dan Roseen (more on v1.03d) Albin's account of how v1.03d came to be was completely accurate. Gary uploaded v1.03d to me on January 16, 1992, and it wasn't until the planet cloning bug surfaced that it was released to everyone on August 16, 1992. Gary didn't have the executable or source code of v1.03d just as Albin stated, so he asked me to release mine. It appears that when Gary fixed the disappearing treasuries bug that the fix also fixed the planet cloning bug. Gary's only purpose for uploading this version to me was so that I could test out the efficiency of DV CPU time slice sharing for input-only routines. I gave Gary quite an extensive report on my DV testing. I also asked him at the time if he wanted me to report on other bugs and he said no, that it was just for the DV testing, and also said I could run it on my BBS since it was essentially the same as v1.03. He held me responsible for not letting that version out to anyone, so I suspect there was only that one copy on my BBS (other than getting permission to give a copy to Joel Downer for a BBS-BBS tournament). To date, there have been no reported differences in how the game plays in v1.03d versus v1.03 except for what I put in the text file that accompanies v1.03d. --- As this is being written, the latest (beta) version of TradeWars is v2.0 wide beta 5, and v2.0wb6 is expected RSN. The new version is signif- icantly different from v1.03d and this file SHOULD NOT be considered a guide -- except in the most general way -- to playing the new game. ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ [ Frequently asked questions ] ÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛ To answer some of the most often asked questions: Question: If I am a CEO and I buy a Corp Flagship, then I quit the corp, do I get to keep the flagship? Wondering if corp members could all be CEO for a day and buy flagships and then rejoin the corp, each retaining the prize ship? (1) Yes, you can keep the FlagShip when you quit, but (2) no, no one with a FlagShip is allowed to join a corp. --- 1. To rob, you need to have -100 alignment or lower. Then, in a sector with a port; (P)ort (R)ob (R)ob credits or (S)teal products. 2. To figure how much you can likely get away with when you steal product, it's your experience divided by 20, for easy figuring. The real numbers are less, but use this one. For robbing credits, it's your exp- erience times 8. 3. In version 1.03(d) THERE IS NO WAY TO KILL A FED! PERIOD. No matter what the odds are, whether or not you p-missile, etc... Maybe in an earl- ier version you can, but not 1.03!!! Stardock, Class 0, or Sol are POSSIB- LE, but VERY difficult. 4. ISS means Imperial Starship. You need +1000 or greater alignment to get an ISS. If you have +500, you can get a Federal Commission, which auto- magically raises your align to +1000. But then you can turn evil and keep it if you're skillful enough. 5. Colonists do regenerate as they're removed from Terra. 6. The average amount of colonists for peak production is 1000 in each group (+/- 1 in Ore, +/- 6 in Org, +/- 12 in Eqp). This will make 55 fight- ers a day. 7. "Computer Upgrade" is a HOAX. It DOES NOT EXIST! PERIOD. The Combat Scanners showing an opponents shield level is NOT the fictitious upgrade. 8. To track someone talk to the Grimy Trader in the Tavern. Ask him about TRADER. He'll say I can tell you : answer no. Then he'll say "Well, is it a particular trader your interested in?" Say yes and enter the name. 9. To get the password to the underground ask the Grimy Trader about MAFIA or UNDERGROUND. Once you have the password, the StarDock command is "U". 10. To lower alignment, go to sector 1. Land and take colonists. Go out of Fed Space and (J)ettison the colonists. In v1.03 games, you can (Q)uit the game then go back in and repeat as necessary. In v1.03d games, you can do this only once per game day. 11. To have an invincible planet, get 16390 ship shields and put them on a level 5 planet. 12. To get the extra 32 holds, get busted stealing 365 holds of Equip or 660 holds of Organics. --- If you take damage points (from any source) while carrying a ptorp, it MIGHT go off sympathetically. If it does, the only effect on you will be that all the remainder of your turns for that game day will be lost. ALWAYS carry a cloak when you're carrying a ptorp. (A scanner is handy too. ) --- - Originally by David White: - How can I find Stardock? Type "V" at the main Command line, ask another player, post a universal announcement, use Joel Downer's FINDSGA, included in TWUTIL10.ZIP, or use Dave Myers' CLASSZER (in LDTxxx.ZIP). - What is FedSpace for? Any players with a non-negative alignment, less than 1000 experience points, and less than 50 fighters can log off overnight in sectors 1-10 and the Stardock sector completely safe from being killed by other players. - What are the tricks to stealing? A player with -100 or lower alignment can steal credits and goods from ports. There is ALWAYS a chance of being busted while trying to rob a port, but some good guideline ratios are, your experience / 20 = holds you can steal your experience * 10 = credits you can steal. - What's the "steal/sell" cycle? With a full load of equipment (or any other commodity), dock at a port that buys that commodity and sell it to them. Then steal it back, and sell it to them again. Repeat. - What's the "holds bug" A player with -100 or lower alignment who gets caught stealing 365 units of Equ. or 660 units of Org. will be fined -32 holds (meaning the player will GAIN 32 holds) and will lose 10% of his or her experience points. This trick can be repeated up to a maximum of 32 holds more than the maximum amount of holds allowed for that particular ship (e.g. 182 holds for an Imperial StarShip (ISS), 102 for a Starmaster, etc.) These holds will be lost as soon as the player ports, unfortunately, unless the technique below is used. - How can I keep an extra 32 holds on my ship? Using the above technique, get the maximum + 32 holds on your ship. Go to earth and get a load of colonists. Port, and steal ONE unit of organics (or another commodity you don't plan on using any time soon). Continue to your planet and drop off the colonists. You will now be able to trade and steal/sell with 32 extra holds PROVIDED you do NOT try to buy, steal, or pick up organics (or whatever commodity you chose) and you do not get busted or destroyed, and you do not S)urrender your cargo to the Ferrengi. - What's the "shield bug?" A planet with a level 5 citadel and 1639 or more planetary shields cannot be successfully invaded by other players. - What's the fighter overloading trick? Join a corporation, then go to the same sector with a corp member with at least as many shields/fighters as you want. Transfer a negative amount of fighters/shields to the corp. member. Repeat as often as you like up to a maximum of 32,767 fighters/shields. This trick is especially useful with a Scout Marauder, which fights at 2:1 odds. Docking at a port, however, will cause the excess shields/fighters to vanish. - What's the shield overloading trick? Use the above technique, or transfer a negative amount of shields to a citadel that already has as many ship shields (planetary shields * 10) as you need. Docking at a port still causes you to lose any extra shields, however. - What are the rules to successfully Transwarping (T-warping)? Transwarping your ship to a sector that contains at least one of your fighters is always safe. Blind ship transwarps are possible only if the destination sector is completely empty of ANYTHING. Blind planetary transwarps are not possible. Ship transwarping costs 3 units of Ore per sector jumped, and planetary transwarping costs 400 units of Ore per sector jumped. Transwarping takes 1 turn regardless of distance traveled. - If I'm busted, can I ever return to that port again? Yes, your name is removed from the port's busted records in 14 day cycles or as soon as another player is caught there, whichever comes first. Until one or the other of these two events occurs, do not try robbing OR trading at that port. If you divide by 14, and multiply any decimal rem- ainder by 14 (round up), you'll get the number of ELAPSED days in the cur- rent cycle. - When can I be commissioned? You can be commissioned if you have an alignment of at least +500. - Can an evil player have an ISS? You must be commissioned to purchase an ISS, but after you have it, you can become evil and still keep the ISS. Running into any of the three Federals (Zyrain, Clausewitz, Nelson) however, means certain death. - Can I kill the Federals? No. Zyrain, Clausewitz and Nelson are indestructible. However, you can trap them in a dead-end sector by placing a fighter right outside the dead-end, since Federals will not travel into a sector that has deployed fighters in it. As long as the fighter stays there, all three Federals can be trapped, though Captain Zyrain will automatically warp out of the sector to rescue players who qualify for protection in FedSpace. - Can a non-CEO have a Corporate Flagship? You must be a CEO to purchase a Flagship, but you can quit as the CEO of your corp. and keep the Flagship. You will not, however, be able to join another corp. - Can I be killed while my ship is cloaked? No, while you are cloaked, you are absolutely invulnerable until your next login (contrary to the documentation, cloaks do not lose their effect- iveness over time.) However, if some player were to figure out which sector you were cloaked in, he or she could mine your sector. The mines would explode as soon as you logged back on. - What are all the settings for my planetary defenses? Examples: Military Reaction level: 20% -- 20% of all the fighters on the planet will attack (at 2:1 odds) any player who moves into your planet's sector. The remaining 80% of the fighters will attack (at 3:1 odds) only if the player attempts to land on your planet. Quasar cannon sector level: 30% -- 30% of all the Ore on the planet will be used to fire on a player entering the sector with your planet, causing 1 point of damage to the player per 3 units of Ore used. Quasar cannon atmosphere level: 60% -- 30% of all the Ore on the planet will be used to fire on a player who attempts to land on your planet, causing 1 point of damage to the player per 1 unit of Ore used. - What are the hidden options in the Stardock? "U" -- Underground, where players with 200 or less alignment can change their name, and post and collect bounties on other players. "+" -- Library, useful only for determining which ships are currently being used by the Ferrengi. Data on alien derelicts is useless. "B" -- Single's Bar, where you can get robbed. Nothing more. - What is the computer upgrade the Grimy Trader talks about? It doesn't really exist. It's just a hoax. - What is the secret message in "Vulcan Thunder?" The secret message (if it exists) seems to have something to do with the characters "9C." Gary Martin has hinted to its existence, but as of yet, no one has found any significance to it. - What's the secret to winning Tri-Cron? Contrary to what the Grimy Trader says, the winning numbers seem to be completely random. - What is Computer Interrogation Mode (CIM) ? From your "Computer Command?" prompt within TW, using the numeric keypad, type -200, , , , , , to get a : prompt. From there, typing "I" (without the quotes) will give you information on all explored sectors, and "R" will give information on all explored ports. ("Q" will quit CIM and "F" will give a path-calculator similar to the one on your ship's computer). To use the information, open a capture file for both sets of info, then use a utility like TWVIEW or TWASSIST that reads the data and arranges it into something useful. --- - What is the tax? As long as you have a positive alignment you will be assessed a 10% "tax" if you have 50,000 creds or more on your ship each time you log in to the game -- NOT just once each game day -- and in return, you are given some neato posit- ive align points; +1 for every 1500 creds you pay in taxes. --- - Where do you get ftrs and how do you use them? Ftrs are avail from five sources: SD, the three class 0 ports (Terra, Rylos and Alpha Centauri), and any personal or corp planets. On the latter, they are produced automatically and it is a valid end game strategy to have many "farm" worlds that produce max ftrs from which they can "harvested." If you buy ftrs from one of the first four places, you'll find that the prices fluctuate on a 'prox 30 day schedule and range from a low of about 110 creds each to a high of 234. This fluctuation is based on calendar date; the price of ftrs (and shields) is identical in all v1.03d games regardless of when the game was started. In the "Reference" section is a chart giving the prices of ftrs/shields vs day. (When ftrs are cheap, shields are dear and vice versa.) Ftrs are deployable in three modes: offensive, defensive and toll. Offens- ive ftrs will attack any hostile trader (player) who enters the sector; defens- ive ftrs will prevent any hostile trader from entering (or remaining in) a sect- or unless the ftrs are first attacked and destroyed (you are offered the option to attack the defensive ftrs or retreat); toll ftrs require a toll of five creds per ftr be paid in order to remain in or pass thru that sector (you are offered the option to pay the toll, retreat or attack the ftrs). To collect the tolls, you (or a corp member in the case of corp ftrs) must physically go to the sector the ftr is in and pick up the ftr(s). If you successfully attack and destroy the toll ftrs, you get any creds they've collected. Hostile ftrs in a sector will destroy eprobes passing through regardless of which mode (offensive, defensive, toll) they are set to (the ftrs will be unaf- fected). Hostile ftrs (again regardless of mode) will also block (occlude) the CIM report on the status of any port in that sector. The offline database util- ities can "sense" this and will tell you that info on the known port in xxx is unavail. This indicates that there is at least one hostile ftr in that sector; how many ftrs and to whom they belong cannot be determined without investigat- ion. A valid tactic seems to be to litter the universe with single ftrs for use as twarp beacons as well as to prevent eprobe mapping by other players or corps. The popular wisdom seems to be that toll ftrs are fairly useless. The choice to litter with offensive or defensive ftrs depends on the tactics and personality of the deploying trader. It can be extremely irritating for a trader to const- antly be attacked by hostile ftrs as he warps through the universe -- as well as costing him damage points. However, the ftr is then lost. It's a choice one must make with no overwhelming evidence for either side. The max ftrs deployable in a sector without a planet is 5000. If there is a planet in the sector, it is possible to have 30000 ftrs deployed. (It is possib- le to use a gtorp to build a planet, deploy 30000 ftrs, then destroy the planet, leaving 30000 ftrs in the sector.) Max ftrs on a planet surface is 32000. Ftrs (any mode) will not affect Ferrengi ships moving into the sector. Game generated characters (aliens) can not move into any sector that has ftrs deploy- ed, and neither can any of the three "Feds." Ferrengi ships can not move into a sector with a planet if there are any ftrs deployed there. --- - How about mines? A max of 99 mines can be deployed in any given sector (regardless of the presence of a planet). Ferrengi and aliens are affected by mines, as are hostile traders. Space mines are can only be purchased at the Hardware section on SD. --- - What are eprobes and how are they used? Eprobes are obtained at SD and can be fired from anywhere to anywhere. Data obtained from eprobes is put into your CIM just as if you'd physically traveled that route; any unexplored warps or ports encountered will become part of your "known universe." The data on every sector passed through and its contents is reported to your screen (the better macro pgms will capture this data and make use of it). They (the eprobes) are extremely fragile and when one encounters a hostile ftr, it will be destroyed no matter what stage in its journey it is and the fact of its destruction is reported to you. When an eprobe completes its journey, it self destructs. Enterprising players have written utils to generate extremely long eprobe paths, thus easing the time and expense required to map a universe. (See the section on Mapping for suggested algorithms.) --- - What is "triple trading?" Triple trading is the process of buying two products at one port and sel- ling them at an adjacent port, buying the one product from there and selling it at the first port (repeat as necesary). Theoretically, each transaction can be optimised for 5xp, though practically 2xp per transaction seems to be the limit. While the return in terms of creds isn't all that much, xp can be fairly rapid- ly gained. Most of the trading macro packages have a triple trading mode. An interesting variation that uses less turns is to move to a class 7 (sss) port and buy selected amts of each product, optimising each trade for max xp, then jettison all of the product bought, port again and buy for max xp again. When done properly in a ScoMar (25 holds max), this reportedly results in the great- est amount of xp gained per cred expended possible. ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ [ Align and xp changes ] ÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛ - by Stephen Whitis: -100 alignment, or lower, alignment required to rob or steal. +500 alignment, or higher, alignment required for a federal commission. +1000 alignment, or higher, alignment required to buy an ISS. -1 alignment, or lower, the feds will take an ISS away if they catch you in it. +200 alignment, or lower, alignment required to get into the underground. 0 alignment, or greater, alignment required to collect bounties at the fed police station. Other than these, alignment doesn't matter much. Some utilities can make modifications, but those are stock. Experience matters only in that evils can steal more with reasonable safety if they have a certain amount of experience. If they have xp/20 = nr of holds when stealing product, or 7 * xp when robbing creds, they are fine. Normaly, once an evil has that much, he doesn't have to worry about it any more. --- Note that there is some dispute over the amt of xp to use when steal- ing product or robbing creds; esp the latter. Figures from xp * 6 all the way to xp * 10 are seen. More than xp * 10 seems to be unwise; I use the figure of xp * 7. For the number of holds to steal, xp/20 seems to be the accepted limit and is the most used level. This figures out to 1400 xp for a StaMas (70 holds) and 3000 xp for an ISS (150 holds). --- - by Jim Bianchi: To get the initial +500 align required for a fed commission (and an ISS) you can kill evil players; you can kill evil game generated chars; you can post bounties on other evil players; you can build ports; you can build planets; you can upgrade ports; or you can pay taxes. The surest method is prob to post a bounty on another evil player. You get +1 align for each 1000 creds posted. This is esp effective if you have found an evil player who is vulnerable -- you can go to SD, place the bounty, blow up the evil player, and return to collect the bounty you post- ed (plus any other bounties on that player). Your align goes up for posting the bounty in the first place and again for killing the evil player. (You can even post a bounty on yourself -- if you do something to make yourself evil first.) To gain neg align, you can kill good players; you can kill good game generated chars; you can post a hit contract on a good player in the under- ground; you can destroy starports; you can jettison colonists; or you can destroy planets. The formula for the amt of align shift when killing other players or game generated chars is: Same align -- you get 1/4 their align subtracted from yours Different align -- you get 1/2 their align added to yours You can land on Terra (or any populated planet) with empty holds, take on a load of colonists, warp to the closest non FedSpace sector and jettis- on them for a shift of -1 align per hold of colonists jettisoned. In v1.03 games, you can repeatedly quit the game, come back and do this again and gain neg align each time. In v1.03d games, you can only get neg align once per game day. Also, the first time you pass by a trader with an opposite align without attacking him, your own align will go in the opposite direction. It has happened that a newbie has not attacked an evil (uncloaked) trader and has had his own align drop -- and can't figure out why. Ditto for the opposite align on both. If you attack with one ftr, you'll be safe. It isn't needful to blow him all the way up, just to attack him. (This only works once per session for obvious reasons.) The fastest method is prob to post a hit contract on another player. You get -4 align for every 1000 creds posted. This is esp effective if you've found a player who is vulnerable -- you can go to SD, place a contract, blow up the good player, and return to collect the contract you posted (plus any other con- tracts on that player). Your align goes down for posting the contract in the first place and again for killing the player. (You can even post a hit contract on yourself -- it's a bit difficult to collect, though. ) If you go to the underground and repeatedly attempt to enter and give the wrong password each time, eventually you'll be knocked unconcious and all creds you have stolen (deposit all creds in the galbank or leave them in a citadel first). Keep attempting to enter and you'll be killed and ret- urned to the BBS. The next day, when you log into the game, you'll be in a ScoMar, with 0 align and 0 xp. All personal and corp assets will be undist- urbed. If you are a CEO and have a CorFla, sell it first, get a ship with minimum holds or use your existing ship to "moth" an enemies planet and get killed in an pod. To gain xp, you can kill anyone; triple trade; create or blow up starports; create or "bust planets." For evil traders, the latter course is prob the fastest and surest method. You buy a gtorp (25,000 creds) and an adet (15,000 creds), "take them outside and set them off." Which is to say that you use the gtorp right at SD and then land on the newly created planet and destroy it with the adet. You'll get 75xp for creating the plan- et and 50xp for destroying it, for a total of 125xp. The align change will be +10 for creating it and -50 for destroying it for a net change of -40. Total cost per iteration: 40,000 creds. It should be noted that once you're evil, planet creation shifts align by -10 instead of +10. Blowing up ports is an effective way to gain both xp and neg align. You'll get 50xp and -50 align for each port destroyed. I typically use 1000 ftrs from an ISS, CorFla or a StaMas on ports with no shielding. I've enco- untered a few with "class one" shielding -- on these I use 2000 ftrs. I've not been zapped yet. Typically, I loose 'prox 55-80% of the ftrs when at- tacking "no shielded" ports, and from 40-75% when doing the "class one" shielded ports. One way to gain xp, pos align and creds is to attack Ferrengi ftrs, assault traders or Ferrengal itself. I once found myself dab in the mid- dle of a cloud of Ferrengi ftrs. When the smoke cleared, I'd knocked down close on 5000 ftrs and was in my trusty pod, headed for SD, with more than enough pos align to get a federal commission and sufficient creds for an ISS. Wheee! Unfortunately, this was my first ISS and not only didn't I know how to drive one, I couldn't fight one effectively, and got bounced by several angry Ferrengi on a blood hunt on the way home. I finally got there in an pod. Had I had this file then, things would've gone quite dif- ferently. At any rate, as a means of gaining xp, align and creds, deliber- ately attacking Ferrengi isn't acceptable for many reasons, most having to do with the cost/benifit ratio. The bounties paid you for killing Ferrengi ftrs simply aren't enough to cover the replacement cost of the ftrs you expend. And there is always the chance that your attack won't succeed and YOU'LL be the one in an pod -- in which case, you'll have to add the repl cost of the ship you were in to the equation. However... --- - by Mike Magero Ok, in your 25 hold ScoMar, you take some credits and warp on over to a class 7 port. You then buy 14 ore for 2 pts, 8 org for 2 points, and 3 equip for 2 more points. On the average you can expect 5 xp total. You then jettison the whole pile out the hatch and do it again. I use a script to run this and it works out to 75-80 credits per exp point. Much more cost effective than any other method I know about. In 100 turns I can build 500-600 exp at a cost of around 45,000 credits. We use this to get enough exp to run the steal/sell loops by day 2-3. Of course you can then rob the credits back from the port further reducing the cost of xp. --- - by Leonard Adolph If you self destruct your experience goes to 0. If your alignment is positive your alignment goes to -10. If your alignment is negative it is cut in half. You are out of the game for 2 days. If your ship is destroyed attacking a port you first lose 25 experience for being destroyed then you lose 10% of what is left. If you lose a pod by attacking a port you lose 25 experience then lose 50% of what is left. You lose 5 alignment for attacking the port and you are out of the game for 1 day. --- * by STEPHEN WHITIS > Does anyone know of a real quick way to get pos align (say 7000+) > down to neg align? How much money do you have? How much experience? Are you planning on running an evil ISS once you turn evil? I know a way an evil player (doesn't matter *how* evil) can turn good, get an ISS, and turn evil again for a few million credits. I suspect a variant on that would work. I'll post the evil version, but as I think about it, I don't see any reason it wouldn't work pretty much straight out for a good trader. If you don't want the evil ISS, you can skip that part. But unless Aedit or something is keeping you from using the evil ISS, I think you should get one. If you don't know the tricks for keeping an evil ISS, then ask, and I'll post about it. I haven't used this, but I trust my source (Joel Downer). The biggest problem is that I might not remember it exactly right... The evil version: Get killed trying to enter the underground without using the correct password. Do this near the end of your turns for the day. The next day, you'll start with 0 exp, 0 alignment and a default ship. Post a reward at stardock on an evil trader... 1000 credits = 1 alignment point, so you'll need 500,000 credits for this. If you know of a easy to kill evil trader, and where he is at, you can go kill him after you get the ISS, and collect the reward you posted (plus anything the Feds have posted on him) before you turn evil again. Once you have +500 alignment, enter the FedStation on stardock, and ask for a commission. That will put you at +1000 alignment. Go buy the ISS. If you need to kill off the evil trader you posted on, this is the time to do it. (If you want, you could have a corp member with 0 ftrs and 0 shi- elds, nothing on board to speak of, waiting, knowing you would kill him.) Now, you've got an ISS, no exp to speak of, and positive 1000 alignment. Stock your ISS with everything it can carry. You can get fighters/shields elsewhere, but get your eprobes, cloaks, scanner, etc now. In an evil ISS you don't want to come to stardock any more often than you have to. Before you start turning evil, post a single fighter at every entrance to Star- dock, to keep the Feds from walking in and finding you there. Once you are evil, if you run into a fed, you lose your ISS, no questions asked. To turn evil again, start busting planets. Buy max planets & max atomic detonators. Build a planet, blow it up. Repeat. This will give you xp and neg align each time you do it. Do that until your alignment is under +200. Then go into the underground, post a bounty on a good trader (preferably one you know where to go kill). In the underground, 250 credits = 1 neg alignment point. You need to reach -100, where you can start stealing. By the time you've busted enough planets to drop your alignment, you'll have enough experience (I think) to rob 150 holds safely. --- Having recently been in a situation similar to the above (a friend was at plus 4000 align and wanted to join my (evil) corp), I'd like to point out that there is a threshold of positive align beyond which it is impos- sible to get into the UG (+200). Not only can't you get IN, you can't even get KILLED there. A nasty looking Corelian will bar your way but that is all he'll do. Busting planets strictly for a large negative align shift is tedious in the extreme. In spite of being almost prohibitively expensive (you'll pay 25,000 for a gtorp and 15,000 for an adet, making a total of 40,000 creds, This will get you -40 align points -- or -1 per 1000 creds), it is about the safest, fastest way; at least until it becomes possible to enter the UG. Planet busting IS a good way to gain xp in order to be able to steal. Of course, the neg align is nice, too, but that isn't what it PRIM- ARILY is for. In order to get to 0 align from +7000, 175 planets will need to be busted. At 40,000 creds each, that works out to seven million creds -- for planets and adets alone. (Not even counting the cost of buying and outfit- ing an ISS or posting hit contracts on good players to bring your align back to evil.) Busting planets to reach 3000xp is much easier. --- One way to lower (or raise) align is to blow up game generated chars. Aliens "enter" the game via SD. Kill one and another will appear at SD to replace him. On one game, one of the routes out of SD is a one way warp to a sector with only one exit. I've put a ftr trap in the second sector and about once a week, I'll load up on ftrs and go have a look. Typically three or five aliens will be trapped there, unable to go on because of the ftrs and unable to go back because of the one way warp in. Determining which al- iens to blow up so that your align moves in the desired direction is fairly easy by just reading their titles. If you're still unsure, the Crai has a listing of all the current good and evil game generated chars. If you put ftrs in each of the sectors leading out of SD, go blow up a game generated char and return to SD to remove one ftr, eventually a new one will move out. Of course, you have no control over what you get -- it might be some poor slob in a MerCru with 20 ftrs or it might be the three-legged Grand High Poo Bah from the planet Xyzzy in a Battleship with 15,000 ftrs, max shields, and loaded to the gunnels with corbomite. Truly, altering one's align direction by anything over 1000 points is a procedure which is time consumingly tedious, expensive and potentially hazardous. It CAN be done (but not very easily) and it can be done in many different ways (some of them mutually incompatible). It is not a project which should be undertaken lightly. ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ [ Keeping an evil ISS ] ÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛ -- by Jim Bianchi: The ISS (Imperial StarShip) is considered to be the most potent ship in the TradeWars universe because of its combo of 150 holds, twarp drive, and the ability to carry and use a photon torpedo. It can also carry a lot of shields (2000), ftrs (30,000) and mines (150). A player who is "good" can just ignore most of what follows. Much of it is concerned with avoiding the three Feds, who will repossess an evil ISS on sight. To get an ISS requires the player to have a minimum +500 align and to go to the FedPolice sta at SD and apply for a commission, after which their align will automagically increase to +1000 and they'll be permitted to buy an ISS. To get the initial +500 align, you can kill other evil players or game generated traders ("Annoyances" or Ferrengi), create planets or starports or you can "buy yourself good" by posting a bounty on an evil player in the Fed Police sta at SD. The first method is expensive in terms of ftrs and shields used and can be somewhat uncertain. The second and third methods are simply not cost-effective for these purposes and can potentially result in assets that can be exploited by hostile forces. The last method, posting a bounty on evil players, is the way most seem to do it. When posting a bounty on an evil player, of course, it's nice if you know definitely where one is, for then you can go and kill him, then run back to SD to collect it. BTW, if you blow away a player who has a "good" align, you might want to check in the UG to see if there has been any hit contracts placed on him; or if he is evil, at the Fed Police sta to see if there are any bounties. It's expensive and not really cost effective, but I once found myself dab in the middle of Ferrengal, taking out Ferrengi ftrs by the bushel, as well as Ferrengi ships. When finally I managed to disengage, my pod was function- ing normally and I was headed back to SD. I noticed when I did "I" that I now had something like +600 align and enough creds to get an ISS straight off, which I did. On the way back to my home sector, I was bounced by four angry Ferrengi who "have been looking for you, HooMan!" Fortunately, my pod was still functioning normally.. (They're STILL looking for me; diamonds and Ferrengi blood feuds are forever..) --- - Originally by Joel Downer: Keeping an Imperial StarShip when evil: Avoid FedSpace as completely as possible. *Never* travel through sector 1-10, and only travel to the StarDock using the strategy described below. Be *very careful* in all areas adjacent to FedSpace, and spend as little time on the Major Space Lanes as possible. Deploy single toll fighters wherever possible when you travel. The Feds cannot travel through sectors with fighters in them, so (a) when you're in a sector with a fighter in it, you are *completely* safe from the Feds, and (b) the more fighters you have scattered outside the Major Space Lanes, the less the Feds will be able to *travel* outside the Major Space Lanes. Imprisoning Admirals Nelson and Clausewitz would be wonderful, but an evil StarShip captain should *never* try it him/herself. It's altogether too dangerous. Travel by TransWarp whenever possible. When you *must* travel by convent- ional warp, use the following pattern: move-deploy-scan, deploying a toll fighter immediately in each sector you enter. Whenever you visit the Star- Dock, buy a full complement of ether probes and cloaks: ether probes are necessary for blind TransWarp, and cloaks can bail you out if you get stuck somewhere (even Zyrain can't attack a cloaked ship!). Carry at least 750 shields and keep mine disruptors, in case someone tries to mine you to death; don't carry more than a few thousand fighters -- they won't help you if you run into the Feds. Find out how many entrances the StarDock has -- usually, it'll have one or two. If it has one, the approach to the StarDock is pretty simple: fire an ether probe into the StarDock, blind TransWarp into the *completely empty* sector nearest SGA. Deploy a fighter immediately, warp in, and do your business. If you see one of the Federals at or near the StarDock, put off your business until he leaves the vicinity -- you may want to restock your shields or holds at Rylos or Alpha Centauri. Don't try to deploy a fighter AT the StarDock; DO deploy a fighter at Rylos or Alpha Centauri when you go there. *NEVER*, unless you have some special reason (e.g., hiding the path to your planet), remove your fighters when you're done in a sector. Forget about the 200 credits. You won't miss them. *BEWARE OF MARKER BEACONS*!!! Marker beacons and wandering aliens are the two greatest dangers to blind TransWarp. Never place them, and destroy them when you can. Don't take unnecessary risks with corbomite. If someone leaves you bait -- e.g., if a hated enemy parks in a major transit sector with 0 fighters in a Scout Marauder -- politely decline the invitation. Well, not *TOO* politely. Leave 99 mines in the sector to let him/her know you still care... ;> When you choose stealing sites, look for places where a port that sells equipment, a port that sells fuel ore, and a port that buys equipment are in close proximity. TWView and my "EVILPAIR" utility are both useful for finding these ports. --- - Quoting Dan Roseen: Here's some evil ISS tips we have in our trainer: EVIL IMPERIAL STARSHIP (EVIL ISS): A trader that received a Federal Commission and bought an ISS will have an evil ISS by keeping their ship and changing their alignment to negative. Keeping an evil ISS requires taking precautions to ensure that you don't move your ship into a sector with a Fed in it, because any one of the three Feds will destroy your ship immediately if this happens. The following precautions will help you keep your evil ISS by helping you avoid the Fed ships (keep in mind that the precautions listed are 'above and beyond' normal precautions like carrying cloaks and protecting yourself against fully mined sectors). - Deploy a defensive fighter everywhere you go (do not attempt to deploy a fighter in Federation sectors 1-10 or the Stardock, in fact avoid these sectors as much as possible). In most cases, deploying the fighter will be the first thing you do after you have scanned the sector and moved into it. Toll fighters should rarely be used because many traders will either pay them and leave you mines for when you transwarp, or destroy them anyway. The Feds will not move into sectors that have a deployed fighter or a mine. - Be sure you have a transwarp drive. Use your transwarp drive as much as possible for your transportation. Always carry fuel when going into suspicious territory. - Know how to blind transwarp. Blind transwarping is usually safer than single-stepping your evil ISS through sectors without deployed fighters, and more efficient. - Always have MORE than 37,000 credits on your ship. If you have no fuel to transwarp out of a hazardous situation, you will be able to build a class 4 port, steal enough fuel to transwarp, and continue with your turns, hopefully ending up in a safer location, and won't have to use another 25,000 credits to replace the cloak you would need to use if you cloaked hoping you might be in a safer situation later in the day. Since all ports under construction have products when they are first created, you can immediately steal the fuel you need (you are evil, you don't have to wait until the port is open for normal trading). After stealing the fuel, you can easily destroy the port to deny its use to hostile forces and increase your own xp and negative align. Initial Port construction DOES NOT REQUIRE a planet in the same sect- or. Upgrading (and "opening for business") DOES. - v1.03(d) BUG: A trader must have more credits than the cost of the port in order for TW to let the trader create the port. For example, a 30,000 credit port would require 30,001 credits or more onboard, even though only the 30,000 credits would be used for port construct- ion. - Use a good TW database utility. In addition to the regular advantages a TW database will give you, a TW database program will help you tremendously in avoiding sectors that Feds can move in. - Always use your scanner unless you are absolutely sure that the next sector is safe (e.g. if you have just been there and you know there is a fighter or mine in the sector). Be aware of the different densities of the Fed ships. The Fed ship densities are: Captain Zyrain . . . . 489 Admiral Nelson . . . . 462 Admiral Clausewitz . . 512 - When going to the Stardock, first attempt to send an etherprobe there to take a preliminary look for Feds. If you see any in the vicinity of the Stardock, try to hold off your business there until a later time or date. When at the Stardock, fill up on etherprobes, cloaks mine disruptors, and mines so you can make as few visits as possible. - Use the two class 0 ports that are not in Fedspace sectors (Rylos and Alpha Centauri) as much as possible when you want to get class 0 items. (Holds, ftrs, shields.) - If you must go to the Stardock, and other traders seem to continually have Zyrain trapped at the Stardock (or other Feds) with deployed toll fighters, you can either try desperately to get into TW immediately after maintenance or you can release the Feds yourself. To release them yourself, create a route of mines from the Stardock where there are fighters. You may be creating a tunnel for the Feds to move in so you will need to make sure there are not any ways for the Feds to get out of this tunnel and end up in your face. And then go next to Zyrain's sector (remember you MUST be in a sector that has a fighter and a mine) and destroy the fighter. Then go to the next sector away from the Stardock and disrupt the mine. Continue this, until you lead the Fed away from the Stardock enough to where you cannot run into him when going around him to the Stardock. You may have to cycle throught the command prompt many times until he warps into the sector you want. You can safely watch him move into the desired sector with your scanner since you will still be in a sector that is protected by a mine and/or fighter. You may want to block his path to the Stardock while you are at it, however, if you have made it safely to the Stardock and get off the Stardock and notice a Fed has moved into the sector, realize that he won't attack you at that moment, but you are strongly advised that your next move is to transwarp immediately out of the Fed's vicinity. - Have at least one other trader without an evil ISS that can help you. If you have an ally you can trust, your ally can help move Zyrain to different parts of the universe by starting to attack a trader that is safe in Fedspace, and then changing their mind when Zyrain warps in to protect the trader. A corp partner without an evil ISS can help with this also, and can additionally help with things like getting colonists from Terra, buying mines from the Stardock, etc. - Realize that without a trusted helper, and without a safe home, that a lone evil ISS will most likely have very difficult times against good competition, because the the trader needs to cloak or have a safe place to rest the ship. - Your helper can also help you out considerably by trapping Admiral Nelson and/or (preferably 'and') Admiral Clausewitz so they cannot move about the universe. They can be trapped with deployed mines and/or fighters. Captain Zyrain will transwarp over a trap when a Fed-protected trader needs his protection. - If you are going into an enemy sector that appears to be of some special value to your enemy, and you suspect it to have one or more other warps into it, and if you cannot check out the contents of the other warp(s), use a photon when going in so the fighters remain in the sector. Your enemy may have one or more of the Feds trapped in an adjacent sector and if you destroy the fighters you will be in a very precarious position. --- - by Joel Downer: Some additional comments. First of all, as I probably said in EVILSTAR.TXT, if you're not comfortable with ether-probing and blind TransWarp, don't use an evil I.S.S. I have had people disagree with me, but in my personal opinion (a) intelligent use of blind TransWarp is necessary to keep the ship against any competition worth beating, and (b) blind TransWarp is the biggest reason to buy the ship in the first place. It can save you 15-18 moves a day -- even more if you're following up destroyed probes in search of a planet. Without blind TransWarp, the I.S.S. is a less efficient stealing ship than the StarMaster; with it, the I.S.S. is much *more* efficient. (And yes, I'd be willing to argue that with anyone who disagrees. ) Second, the main difference between playing in an evil I.S.S. and playing in another ship is that you've got to pay more attention to every move and choice in the evil StarShip. I assume you already density-scan wherever you go, and I know you're comfortable with database utilities. You also have to make a lot of cost-benefit decisions. For example, if you don't have good competition, it's always wise to deploy a fighter in the sector where you cloak, because (assuming you're not in an MSL) doing so virtually guarantees that you will not have a Fed waiting for you when you log in. Against a smart enemy, though, the fighter may do more harm than good. Is it safe to cloak at your stealing site? Maybe not, even if your ship is named "The Merchant Marines" (it's possible to track "The Merchant Marines" using date docked; it's just harder and more expensive). Is it better to cloak a couple sectors away, with no fighters in the sector? Against the very shrewdest opponent, you may even want to take the precaut- ion of TransWarping on your last turn and cloaking in the sector to which you TransWarped. Why? If your enemy creates a multisector trap for you, and you're forced to retreat as soon as you uncloak, you will retreat into the *last sector visited*, even if that sector is halfway across the universe. Sound arcane? By an interesting series of coincidences, that feature of the game saved my ship once when I was playing against an extremely devious enemy named Tony Cichan. An intelligent enemy will probably make the elimination of your StarShip one of his/her top priorities. If you don't have teammates, you will have to show extreme care around the StarDock, and *extreme* care if you need to invade a planet -- what better defense for a planet than herding Clausewitz and Nelson into the sector and trapping them with a fighter? An enemy may also create planets directly off FedSpace, banking on your reluctance to travel through sectors 1-10 -- someone did that to me in the last game I played, and I barely caught on in time to keep him from putting together something defensible. What you're doing is assuming an enormous vulnerability in exchange for a ton of freedom. Against a weak enemy, you'll have no trouble covering up the vulnerability. Against a good enemy, you've got to do everything you can to exploit the freedom, because the vulnerability will nag at you. ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ [ Suggested tactics ] ÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛ - by Joel Downer: Question: In a new game, what should be your goal in the first few days? Let's assume a corporate strategy, for a corp of 3-5 players, to keep this simple. (That's what I've usually been playing these days anyway.) Let's also assume that we're playing a game with *no* treaties or rules about the shield bug. I plan on playing evil wherever I play. I expect to find the StarDock the first day of the game -- if it isn't displayed in the Game Status screen, I or one of my corp-mates will run FINDSGA to locate it. As soon as we find StarDock, we trade in our Merchant Cruisers for Scout Marauders (with the trade-in value of the average Merchant, you can buy a Scout with 25 holds and a density scanner, and have a little left over with which to go out to dinner ). The Scout is the single best ship in the early stages because of its move rate. My choice from that point depends on the game configuration. If FedSpace is open to squatters, my teammates and I will spend the first 3 - 4 days parking in FedSpace and working trade pairs to build up experience. I like to use the evil Imperial StarShip, so I will try to upgrade to a StarMaster the second day, a Mule the third or fourth, get my commission by the fifth or sixth day, and keep the StarShip from then on. My teammates will typically turn evil by the fourth day (after you have about 375 experience, stealing will be *substantially* more profitable than trading); one way I'm likely to get a quick commission is to coordinate logins with one of my future teammates so that I can blow my *future teammate* up. Objectives for the first 4 - 7 days (depending on the turn rate): to get myself into an Imperial StarShip with slightly less than 1,000 experience, and to get the team members who *won't* be in StarShips stealing in Star- Masters with at least 1,100 experience. We do *not* usually set aside turns for exploration; when we need to find new trade pairs or dead ends, we use ether probes. Objectives for the next 2 - 4 days: to build a well-concealed planet and stock it with 3,000,000 colonists. I will deploy a fighter in a dead-end sector and create a planet there. I will frequently ask my future evil teammates to deploy fighters and mines *in the sector immediately adjacent* to the dead-end. The fighters and mines protect the planet; I enter and exit the sector using TransWarp. Objective for the succeeding 1 - 3 days: to assemble the corporation in final form. I dump colonists to turn evil, start stealing conservatively, and "bust planets" (create and destroy empty planets) to try to build my experience up to 2,250, where I can steal 150 holds. My teammates steal aggressively. Objective for the succeeding three weeks: to build a planet to level five, preventing our enemies from building or defending a planet to a level II citadel. We use ether probes and search aggressively whenever new citadels appear in the game status screen (find as many uses as you can for TWView's OFFLINE program, using version 0.91 if you can; you also may want to look at my FINDHOLE utility). Because of my p-missile capabilities, I can destroy *any* planet that doesn't have a level II citadel at a trivial cost. We upgrade our single planet aggressively, placing the maximum defenses on it at any given time (32,000 fighters; 1639 shields the day it turns level V). If the relative strengths of the teams in the game justify the move, we may invade Ferrengal and either (a) destroy it, or (b) defend it, to prevent our enemies from seizing a ready-made level III citadel. End-game objectives: If we have a level V citadel, and we can prevent our enemies from building or defending a planet, we expect to control the game. We continue to steal full-speed, and stockpile money in our shield-bugged citadel until the combination of our stealing and treasury interest is overwhelming. Through this process, we probably spend 95% of our turns stealing from ports. We use the five-point stealing cycle, but we don't otherwise worry about experience unless our score is low enough to interfere with our stealing. We kill only when absolutely necessary: we expect competant opponents to stay cloaked unless they have a reason to *want* to be attacked. --- - by Stephen Whitis: > Can someone tell me a successful way of earning money and ruling the > universe in the shortest time possible? The info below doesn't discuss using holds-bug, but if no unbug utilities are running, you should consider it. Later, after you have a citadel, you should run CMH bug (again, assuming no unbug utilities are running.) Read the FIDO-TradeWars echo daily. You'll learn a lot there. When you ask questions, try to be specific, and try to read the FAQ first. Save a copy of the FAQ for later reference. Get a copy of TWAssist, TWView or a similar utility and use them. You can't be competitive in a quality game without them. These are utilities which parse out the ton of information and make it useful. See the end of this section. Also look for TWTIPS12, a collection of tip files for TW's which covers most of the bugs and basic strategy. If possible, try to join a game that hasn't been going long. A game that's been around for awhile is hard (or impossible) to succeed in if the players who were in it at the beginning are any good at all. You might learn some things in that situation (that's how I started) but to win, you really need to get in near the begining and PLAY EVERY DAY. DON'T SELF-DESTRUCT! There is always a better solution. You don't get to start from scratch if you self destruct, and you'll have to sit out of the game for two days, so it's not worth it. If you don't know where stardock is, and get stuck in an escape pod, attack a port at the end of your turns for the day. The next day, you'll start in a scout. DON'T ATTACK ALIENS OR FERRENGI! They are a distraction. Attacking, or running from Ferrengi ships will put a grudge against you, and you will probably regret it later. Don't give up. Everyone gets blown up from time to time, and when you are learning the game, it can happen quite often. Learn from each mistake, ask questions, read the FIDO-TW echo, and come back for revenge! The docs are available throughout the game at the main menu, and some sysops have them available for DL. Capture them, read them. But beware that the docs are sometimes wrong. Fedspace includes sectors 1-10 and the sector with Stardock. No other sectors are fedspace, regardless of the fact that someone may have created a beacon which claims a sector is fedspace. The first day you play, your #1 goal is to find the stardock. Use the V command at the main menu to see if it's listed. If not, run FINDSGA (distributed as part of TWUTIL10.*), a utility written by Joel Downer which often helps locate it. If that doesn't work, try posting a public msg asking for the location (or private messages to traders in any ship other than an escape pod or the default merchant ship. Players in scouts may have gotten them due to getting an escape pod blown up.) Warping over long distances, with ANSI on so you can tell which sectors you haven't visited yet, will usually help you find it, as it usually has one or two warps in and five or six warps out, and that makes for a fairly high-traf- fic sector. If you have to look for it this way, the sectors you explore will be useful later, and perhaps you'll find some good trade pairs. Don't explore randomly. Turn on ANSI, and travel down long paths with lots of red (unexplored) sectors using the autowarp. As soon as you locate the Stardock, trade in your ship for a scout. It won't have a lot of holds, fighters, or shields, but it has a high turn ratio. If you drop your fighters in the sector just outside the sector containing stardock, you can pick them up after trading ships. Fighters don't have much trade in value, so that saves you some money. Buy a scout (for the high turn rate), maximum holds (25), and you can probably afford a density scanner, which is worth the money. Don't buy anything else the first time you are there unless you've already been trading while you hunted for stardock. Try to put a little money in the bank on stardock, for emergency use. Eventually, have 100,000 there. If you are planning on playing Evil (recommended) then find a port which will buy Equipment and sell Fuel and Organics. You want it to be adjacent to a port which does the opposite (sells Equipment, buys Fuel and Organics.) Trade at these ports, and at the port which sells Fuel/ Organics, use half of your holds for one, half for the other. Always bargain prices, and you should be able to get 2 experience points each time you make a deal. That will raise your experience pretty fast (it's called triple-trading, since you trade three types of equipment during each set.) You need experience to be able to Steal effectively, so triple trading can help you get that experience. You can triple trade whether you are evil or not. It takes some practice to get 2 pts per trade regularly, especially in a scout with max 25 holds, but it's worth it. Use the V command at the main command prompt. If ships are allowed to stay in FedSpace overnight, then plan on using FedSpace until either you turn evil or (if planning on staying good) you can afford to cloak nightly. You will be protected there if you have 0 or higher alignment, under 1000 experience, and less than 50 fighters. Until you go evil, FedSpace is your safe haven when you aren't playing. Just save your money, don't buy a lot of fighters and shields. If the Ferrengi want to rob you, let them. You do want to buy holds, though. In the early part of a game, when you are using Fedspace for protection, you can drop extra fighters (over the 50 ftr limit) in a sector outside of fedspace, to pick up later. Someone *may* kill them, and if you leave them in a major space lane (such as the route to Stardock from Terra and back) the feds will remove them. But it's an option I find useful. Don't go evil until your experience is at least 375-400. Then you can jettison colonists or post bounty's in the underground to turn evil. You need to have a -100 or less alignment to Rob/Steal. Some players prefer to keep trading (or triple-trading) until their experience is much higher, say over 1050, so they can steal-sell 70 holds in a starmaster. Once you've turned evil, FedSpace isn't going to protect you, so start cloaking every night. (In some games it may not be needed, but in general, plan on it. Once you start running a Steal/Trade system, you can easily afford it.) If you divide your experience by 20, you have a good idea of how many holds of equipment you can steal without getting caught. Exp / 15 is a little more risky, but still pretty safe. Regardless, there is *always* a chance of getting busted. If necessary you can steal equipment several times to fill your holds, and sell it all at once. To run the Steal-Sell loop, start with equipment in all of your holds. Go to a port which buys equipment. Sell your equipment. Steal equipment (5%-6.6% of your experience or so) until your holds are full. Sell it again. Just keep doing that, and always bargain prices. Your experience will go up as you do this, so eventually you will be able to steal more at a time. Five point trading means selling your equipment for 100% best price every time. It's maximum profit, and raises your experience five points each time you sell, so it's worthwhile. It will be explained elsewhere in the FAQ. I keep using the scout until I have enought experience to steal 70-85 holds at a time safely, and then move to another ship. Usually your choice is between a starmaster and a corp. flagship, if you are head of a corporation. If not, the starmaster is almost always the best ship. For advanced players, the evil ISS is the way to go. Whenever you buy a new ship, you should have enough money to buy the ship, maximum holds, a new density scanner (or holo scanner), and a cloak. Otherwise, you should probably stay in the ship you are already in a little longer (unless it's an escape pod. Never stay in an escape pod. You can trade it in for a scout right away, and you should.) When you buy a ship you plan to keep for awhile, buy a holo-scanner. Cloaks don't fail unless an external utility is causing them to, and you should cloak nightly unless you qualify for fedspace. Even in games where cloaks do fail based on a low %, use the cloaks. But if they can fail, you may want to move to a dead end to cloak. Use the density scanner any time you are moving to a sector you haven't visited, and use it when the surrounding sectors are unexplored. It will tell you when a port is adjacent, and help locate dead ends, planets, and other ships. If you (or a corp. member) plan on using a ship with transwarp you should drop single fighters regularly. Especially in dead ends, where they will tend to survive longer. These fighters will also slow your opponents who try to Eprobe to explore. I drop them even when I don't plan on using a ship with Twarp capability. Once you've located stardock, don't use a lot of turns exploring. 95% of the time (or more) you want to be making money with your turns. This is very basic, but many players use turns warping around, chasing aliens, or being sidetracked by Ferrengi. Use your turns to make money. To explore, spend money on Etherprobes and use them. The database utilities will allow you to get a list of sectors which not only have you not explored, but which no sector you *have* explored has a warp to. By eprobing these sectors, you will gain info on at least two sectors. If you use the computer F command with ANSI on, you can look for paths with lots of unexplored sectors, which is useful mainly in the early stages of the game when you haven't explored very much. In a corporation, usually only one person needs to do much exploring... The other players just make money. Eventually, you'll need that money! Your long term goal is to develop a well defended planet, while keeping your opponents from doing the same. Ideally, your planet will be shield bugged. In games where shield bug isn't allowed, you want max shields and 32,000 fighters on the planet. With a well defended planet, you can stock money in the citadel, which will gain 4% interest a day. When that amount is high enough, no one without a similar source of income will be able to harm you. If you can shield bug a planet, you probably only need 1. If you can't, you may need a few, but most players build more planets than they need, and when a planet is partially developed, it's high-risk. An opponent might steal the level-4 planet, Twarp it away, and then all the work is in their hands... --- - by Jim Bianchi: Teamwork is the key to winning games. A four or five man corp can easily clear 2.5 -- 3.5 million creds/day once established. To start, one of the corp members should, after SD has been located, spend most of his time there, where he has easy access to a source of eprobes. (Note: Dave Myers' TWFT and the mapping routines in TWASSIST may modify this somewhat.) Using the eprobe mapping routines in PWRMACS or TWFT, this person maps the universe, providing data to the other members on paired ports. Meanwhile, the other members should pound ports, triple trading them right down to the ground if possible. The objective is obtaining xp and creds, NOT exploring. The creds should be funneled to the member who is at SD, either directly, or through the galbank. As the universe approaches 100% mapped, the members start building up their own galbank accts. Ships: The usual policy seems to be to, once SD has been found, go there and trade in your merchie for a ScoMar, a dscanner, max holds and enough to get started trading again. This should prob be the course the mapper should take, as he'll need to physically investigate places where eprobes have been destroyed. The rest of the crew should prob stay with a stock merchie until they can get into a StaMas with max holds (as soon as they have the necessary creds). With close teamwork, transferring ftrs and shields is easy between corp members. (It is possible to tfr a neg amt of shields or ftrs to temporarily overload a fellow corp members ship while you trade in the one you have and buy another.) Esp in the early stages of the game, every cred saved when buying ftrs/shields can make a difference. However, don't let not having a close-by teammate stop you from buying a new ship. And ALWAYS buy at least one ftr with your new ship. I once got a new StaMas, a few shields and max holds, and zero ftrs. On my way out of SD to the sector where I'd "parked" my ftrs fm the old ship, I entered the wrong sector number and ended up running into 'prox 50 offensive ftrs left by someone else. Fortunately, my pod was functioning normally.. Good vs evil: For the first few days, game parms permitting, you should plan to park overnight in FedSpace. You can stay uncloaked in Fed- Space overnight as long as your xp is less than 1000, the number of ftrs on your ship is 50 or less, your align is +1 or greater and the number of squ- atters in the FedSpace sector you are in is less than the nr posted on the V screen. If your align is negative or your xp is greater than 1000, you can be attacked and destroyed in FedSpace. When the extern pgm runs, if you have more than 50 ftrs or there are more than the allowed number of squatters in that FedSpace sector, you'll be towed out into space (nothing else will be done to you by the Feds). Under some circumstances, this can be exploited to aid in exploring the universe in the very early days of a game. If the Feds tow you out to space for one reason or another, you will usually end up somewhere on one of the MSLs. In a low turns game, this can be used to give you a "running start" on exploration. Log on very soon after midnight, however, to get yourself into a more protected area where you won't be attacked by other traders. In a game with no squatters allowed overnight in FedSpace, there seems little need for remaining good (unless, of course, you WANT to be). Recom- mended ways of turning evil are: jettisoning colonists, killing good play- ers or game generated good aliens, placing a hit contract on another good player in the underground, cursing the grimy trader in the tavern, blowing up starports and blowing up planets. Once you have -100 align you can start robbing creds fm ports (use xp x 7 = creds to rob in any single attempt); or stealing product (use a max of xp/20 = nr of holds to steal). Each suc- cessful robbery will gain you xp and neg align points. A tactic that has been used VERY successfully in one local game in- volved four corp partners who started the game as above. The "mapper" early on discovered Ferrengal. Further mapping, combined with some course plotter investigation revealed that Ferrengal was in a dead-end tunnel and that there was an empty sector behind it. By the time this was discovered, the leader was almost done with mapping the universe, so he bought an ISS (buying his pos align with creds supplied by the rest of us). Then he bought a ptorp and a gtorp (several gtorps, actually), used the ptorp to temporarily neutralise the Ferrengi ftrs while he moved THROUGH that sector without otherwise disturbing them to get to the one BEHIND, where he fired off his gtorps and placed ftrs so that each of the rest of us, as we in turn bought our commissions and got into an ISS, could twarp there. (Altern- atively, albiet somewhat risky, a cheapo HavGun could be obtained and a blind twarp made to the sector behind since a ptorp advertises its use in the daily log.) In this way, our planets were (more or less) safe from detection dur- ing the critical phase while they were upgrading, as they were in a dead end tunnel with Ferrengal as the "front door." We each then turned evil by dumping colonists and busting planets (and killing good aliens/players when avail). One of us juggled his align so that it was only -1 (so as not to drag down the xp of the others in the corp). Upon logging in each day, the normal increase of one align point was sufficient to bring the align up to neutral (0) and allow safe access to Terra for colonising the planets. Us- ing twarp, it was possible to bring out nearly 1 million new happy campers each session. To get down to neg align again, this person would jettison one hold of colonists each day at the end of his play. As the corp grew stronger, Ferrengal itself was eventually invaded and added to our list of corp planets. By this time, we had each of the five sectors in the tunnel heavily mined (99) and those sectors with planets had 30,000 defensive ftrs (the rest only had 5000). We've successfully blockad- ed SD several times with ftrs/mines and have caught just about everyone at least once. The game is rather boring for in spite of us leaving taunts and hints in the Tavern conversation, there is NO organised resistance. There are NO other planets and the only other corp folded a week ago. The vast majority of the ftrs and mines in the universe are ours. We have six L5 planets, each w/1638 shields (by agreement they are not invulnerable). One tactic we use is to build a class 4 (ssb) port in the same sector with our planets and as the port is completed, move a planet one sector up the tunnel to support construction of another class 4. In this way, we can each run sell/steal in a totally secure area and cancel each others busts if necessary. Hey, four or five players, each in an evil ISS (150 holds), can make a LOT of creds when all they need worry about is hold replacement when getting busted. I log in to the game, fill my holds w/equip, lift off and run sell/steal at the port that is right there for 66 turns (on a bust free day), land on the planet and deposit my 'prox 700,000 creds inna tre- asury. It's almost boring! It is perhaps a commentary on the quality of the local competition that when one of us is busted, we LOOSE more xp than the highest ranking non-corp player has TOTAL! ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ [ Ship selection ] ÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛ - by Jim Bianchi Wanna provoke an arg on one of the Tradewars conferences? Write a msg of type: "the very best ship is an xxxxxx." Second only to calls for inf- ormation on the "bugs," that topic seems to take up most of the bandwidth there and it's a pity, really, because after the first few exchanges, there is never anything new in the way of using xxxxxx ship, or real detriments in one type or another ship shown (with the exception of the Tholian Sent- inel). What is the "ideal" ship? For each stage of the game, this author is convinced that there is an ideal choice or range of choices, but in this as in most things, there is ample room for alternatives and outright disagre- ement. For instance, I prefer the CorFla to the ISS, esp when playing alone. Perhaps it's because I've had four Imperial StarShips shot out from under me by Ferrengi on a blood hunt (and those things are EXPENSIVE!) and maybe it's because I like to be able to be evil, warp around and not worry about running into a Fed and loosing my ship. Another very serious thing to consider is, is this a game in which bugs are allowed to be used? If so, the obvious choice is a ship most of us would never consider otherwise: the Havoc Gunstar. It is inexpensive. It can carry enough firepower to adaquately defend itself. It has twarp capab- ility. It can be swopped in a citadel. And when "hold bugged," it can carry an impressive payload. Since you needn't be evil to run the Corporate Mega Holds bug, a CMH bugged HavGun is the ship of choice for use in games that allow exploitation of bugs; at least until an ISS can be purchased. Since I play almost exclusively in non-bug games (where bug use isn't engaged in by agreement or bug use is monitored), my usual choice is the CorFla. I like it. It's like a StaMas with twarp and 15 extra holds. When starting in a new game, I tend to think that the basic default "merchie" is much underrated. It can have fifteen more holds than a StaMas, and while it doesn't have near the ftr or shield capacity of a StaMas, these things aren't (or shouldn't be) very important in a just starting game anyway, when the objective is to make creds and xp. (Leave the "shoot 'em up, bang-bang" to the kiddies.) I first try to improve my merchie to max holds, then max shields. I figger that, by the time I loose it to enemy action the universe has become too dangerous to warp about in without some serious protection and I get into a maxed out StaMas, or if I'm CEO and have the creds, a CorFla. The ScoMar has the benefits of having a much larger base turn rate, and the highest combat odds of any ship in a non edited game. It is these odds that make the ScoMar the ship of choice in bugs-allowed games, for if it is overloaded with ftrs and shields (up to 32767 of each), it is nearly unstoppable and is capable of (two times out of three) destroying SD and most of the other class 0 ports. In a non bug game, it still possesses a large base turn rate and this makes it attractive to many who prefer to go see for themselves, as opposed to sending an eprobe. The StaMas has what is generally accorded the best ratio of firepower and cargo carrying ability to moves of any of the other ship types. If a secure area is provided (preferably containing a class 0 port), the ColTra, with its 250 holds, can prove a real money maker for one who is sufficiently evil to be able to sell/steal 250 holds at a whack. The only advantages that I can see to a Missile Frigate are that it is cheap, can be had by anyone, and can carry a ptorp. It is only nominally a trading ship. When reading the shipspecs, pay attn to holds vs %move vs firepower. Since the amt of moves per day per player is sysop settable, this figure is expressed as a percentage of however many moves the sysop has plugged into the game. Obviously, the ship with the most of both would prob be the ship of choice, not considering twarp. Firepower (defensive and offensive) is very important. I like to stay with the default merchie for as long as possible, then to get into a CorFla or an ISS. In an active (already running) game, I'd prob stay with the merchie until I could get into a StaMas (due to the greater defensive potential of a StaMas) and then start accumulating creds for a CorFla or an ISS. Most of my games have been with a corp, each of whom is evil in an ISS. So I have little experience with any other types of large hold ship, such as the ColTra or TauMul. I've heard it said that an evil TauMul is nearly the money-maker that an ISS is. I have no personal opinion either way and only say that to point out the possibility. (I don't want to start a shipwar.) One thing to consider is the effort and align adjusting needed to get into an ISS and then go evil. Esp if you are playing alone, if you loose the ISS, it REALLY takes quite a lot of creds to get your align adjusted back up to +500 and get another. (Which is one reason a strong corp is nice to be able to fall back on.) It might be more cost effective in the long run to just stay evil and get a CorFla or a StaMas. One thing to be considered when contemplating being evil is the pen- alty for being busted; each time you are, you are fined some amt of holds, which must then be replaced. The time and moves spent going to a class 0 port or to SD for hold replacement is time and moves not spent making (stealing or robbing) creds. (One reason the twarp ships are favored by evil players.) As pointed out elsewhere, an pod can be traded straight across for a ScoMar and 1000 creds. --- Here are the shipspecs: -- Originally by Jason Boyd: Min Max Max Max Max Max Max Max Max Cost %Mv Hold Hold Odds Ftrs perAt Shld P-M Mine G-T Bcn L P T ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ escpod 0 free 50 1 5 .8:1 50 10 50 0 0 0 0 Y MerCru 1 26300 100 20 75 1.0:1 2500 1000 400 0 50 5 50 Y Y ScoMar 2 13200 200 10 25 2.0:1 250 250 100 0 0 0 10 Y Y MisFri 3 28800 100 12 60 1.3:1 5000 2000 400 10 5 0 5 CorBat 4 40500 83 16 80 1.6:1 10000 3000 750 0 25 1 50 Y Y CorFla 5 71000 100 20 85 1.2:1 20000 6000 1500 0 100 10 100 Y Y Y ColTra 6 54400 58 40 250 .6:1 200 100 500 0 0 5 10 Y Y CarTra 7 59400 67 40 125 .8:1 400 125 800 0 1 2 20 Y Y MerFre 8 36200 150 30 60 .8:1 300 100 500 0 2 2 20 Y Y ImpSta 9 128600 83 40 150 1.5:1 30000 10000 2000 5 125 10 150 Y Y Y HavGun 10 29500 125 10 40 1.2:1 3000 1500 500 0 5 1 5 Y Y StaMas 11 48000 133 30 70 1.4:1 5000 2000 1000 0 50 5 50 Y Y ConSte 12 40500 100 20 70 1.4:1 5000 2000 750 0 25 2 50 Y Y TkhOri 13 36000 133 30 60 1.1:1 750 250 750 0 5 1 20 Y Y ThoSen 14 27000 90 10 50 1.0:1 3000 1000 1000 0 50 1 10 Y TauMul 15 53600 83 40 150 .5:1 300 150 500 0 0 2 20 Y Y L P T: Long Range Scanner, Planet Scanner, TransWarp Drive. Only the Missile Frigate and ISS can carry a ptorp. The Feds will destroy on sight an ISS used by a player with neg align, no questions asked. (Just make sure they don't SEE you..) --- These are the various ship descriptions in an unedited game: <1> Merchant Cruiser <2> Scout Marauder <3> Missile Frigate <4> BattleShip <5> Corporate FlagShip <6> Colonial Transport <7> CargoTran <8> Merchant Freighter <9> Imperial StarShip <10> Havoc GunStar <11> StarMaster <12> Constellation <13> T'Khasi Orion <14> Tholian Sentinel <15> Taurean Mule (When reading these specs, be aware that the number listed under moves per day is the actual number of moves and not the percentage of moves. These stats were obtained from a game using the default 60 base moves per player per day. Thus 60 moves equals a 100% turn rate.) Ship Category #1 Ship Class : Merchant Cruiser The Merchant Cruiser is the standard fare for earning a living in the universe. These craft are moderately fast, well armored and have hard points for many different accessories. Many cartels use the Merchant Cruiser as their only ship type. The Merchant is the craft by which combat specs are rated for a standard. Basic Hold Cost: 10,000 Min Holds: 20 Maximum Holds: 75 Main Drive Cost: 1,000 Max Fighters: 2,500 Maximum Shields: 400 Computer Cost : 5,300 Move rate/day: 60 Offensive Odds: 1.0:1 Ship Hull Cost : 10,000 Mine Max: 50 Beacon Max: 50 Ship Base Cost : 26,300 Genesis Max: 5 Long Range Scan? Yes TransWarp Drive? No Planet Scanner? Yes Max Fighters Per Attack: 1,000 Photon Missiles? No Ship Category #2 Ship Class : Scout Marauder The Scout Marauder is currently the fastest, conventional drive ship known to mankind. This small speedster can easily outdistance even the powerful Corellian Battleships. It is not equipped for controlling many fighters or shields, but it fights at 2 to 1 odds due to its quickness and small size. This craft cannot carry mines or Genesis Torpedoes. It may be small, but this ship's speed and range make up for much. Basic Hold Cost: 5,000 Min Holds: 10 Maximum Holds: 25 Main Drive Cost: 3,000 Max Fighters: 250 Maximum Shields: 100 Computer Cost : 2,450 Move rate/day: 120 Offensive Odds: 2.0:1 Ship Hull Cost : 2,750 Mine Max: 0 Beacon Max: 10 Ship Base Cost : 13,200 Genesis Max: 0 Long Range Scan? Yes TransWarp Drive? No Planet Scanner? Yes Max Fighters Per Attack: 250 Photon Missiles? No Ship Category #3 Ship Class : Missile Frigate Missile Frigates are really nothing more than a retro-fitted Merchant Cruiser. They maintain the same speed and range of the Merchant but can carry twice the firepower. Commanding a Frigate means that you cannot take advantage of much of the additional starship equipment available, but their combat advantages make up for that. The Missile Frigate is the only ship outfitted to carry the awesome Photon Missile. These weapons of destructions can turn StarPorts into space junk in short order. The Photon Missile was also used effectively in the Trantorian conflict to totally destroy the enemy's home planet. Basic Hold Cost: 6,000 Min Holds: 12 Maximum Holds: 60 Main Drive Cost: 1,000 Max Fighters: 5,000 Maximum Shields: 400 Computer Cost : 10,800 Move rate/day: 60 Offensive Odds: 1.3:1 Ship Hull Cost : 11,000 Mine Max: 5 Beacon Max: 5 Ship Base Cost : 28,800 Genesis Max: 0 Long Range Scan? No TransWarp Drive? No Planet Scanner? No Max Fighters Per Attack: 2,000 Photon Missiles? Yes Ship Category #4 Ship Class : BattleShip The Corellian Battleship is a dangerous craft indeed! This ship packs the most punch of any ship in the Federation. Battleship's can carry four times the fighters of a Merchant and deliver them with a much higher degree of effectiveness due to their superior combat computers. The shield generators on Battleships are capable of shielding the ship's fighters as well. This craft is one of the more prestigious and powerful ships available today. Basic Hold Cost: 8,000 Min Holds: 16 Maximum Holds: 80 Main Drive Cost: 1,000 Max Fighters:10,000 Maximum Shields: 750 Computer Cost : 13,500 Move rate/day: 50 Offensive Odds: 1.6:1 Ship Hull Cost : 18,000 Mine Max: 25 Beacon Max: 50 Ship Base Cost : 40,500 Genesis Max: 1 Long Range Scan? Yes TransWarp Drive? No Planet Scanner? Yes Max Fighters Per Attack: 3,000 Photon Missiles? No Ship Category #5 Ship Class : Corporate FlagShip Few words can actually describe the sheer awe associated with a Corporate Flagship. Only available to Corp CEOs, this huge craft is the ultimate in power and capability. Not only can it carry up to 20,000 fighters at one time, this ship carries a powerful combination of options that will make any foe turn tail and run. The most impressive capability of the Flagship is the TransWarp Drive. This device enables the ship to TransWarp to any other sector in the Universe provided one of your fighters is already there emitting a locator beam. Without this, a ship can disapear into TransWarp and never be seen again. Basic Hold Cost: 10,000 Min Holds: 20 Maximum Holds: 85 Main Drive Cost: 5,000 Max Fighters:20,000 Maximum Shields: 1,500 Computer Cost : 27,500 Move rate/day: 60 Offensive Odds: 1.2:1 Ship Hull Cost : 28,500 Mine Max: 100 Beacon Max: 100 Ship Base Cost : 71,000 Genesis Max: 10 Long Range Scan? Yes TransWarp Drive? Yes Planet Scanner? Yes Max Fighters Per Attack: 6,000 Photon Missiles? No Ship Category #6 Ship Class : Colonial Transport The Colonial Transport is a massive structure that can only barely be called a ship. This huge craft is ideal for moving large amounts of products or colonists from place to place. Though it has a standard drive, this ship is rather slow due to the mass involved. Also, the combat computers are rather limited on this craft due to the excessive needs of the navigation computers. The Transport is not outfitted for carrying or deploying mines. Conflict brings the Transport's major weakness to light. Due to the size of the craft, it is very hard to defend against fighters. Basic Hold Cost: 25,000 Min Holds: 40 Maximum Holds: 250 Main Drive Cost: 1,000 Max Fighters: 200 Maximum Shields: 500 Computer Cost : 3,200 Move rate/day: 35 Offensive Odds: 0.6:1 Ship Hull Cost : 25,200 Mine Max: 0 Beacon Max: 10 Ship Base Cost : 54,400 Genesis Max: 5 Long Range Scan? Yes TransWarp Drive? No Planet Scanner? Yes Max Fighters Per Attack: 100 Photon Missiles? No Ship Category #7 Ship Class : CargoTran The CargoTran is a large ship indeed. Though not as fast as some of its related trading cousins, this ship can move vast amounts of goods. It is typically a pacifist's ship as it does not carry much in the way of offensive capabilities but it's very large array of holds makes up for all of that. The large shield capacity of this craft makes it safe to wander hostile territory as well. This ship is considered by many to be one of the top money-makers in the Universe. Basic Hold Cost: 25,000 Min Holds: 40 Maximum Holds: 125 Main Drive Cost: 1,000 Max Fighters: 400 Maximum Shields: 800 Computer Cost : 4,000 Move rate/day: 40 Offensive Odds: 0.8:1 Ship Hull Cost : 29,400 Mine Max: 1 Beacon Max: 20 Ship Base Cost : 59,400 Genesis Max: 2 Long Range Scan? Yes TransWarp Drive? No Planet Scanner? Yes Max Fighters Per Attack: 125 Photon Missiles? No Ship Category #8 Ship Class : Merchant Freighter The Merchant Freighter is the ideal ship for those traders that do not want to concern themselves with political matters. It is not a very powerful ship in combat, but its strengths are many. This ship can carry a large number of shields and manages to outdistance most ships. After all, "Those who fight and run away, live to fight another day" still holds very true in the universe as we know it today. Basic Hold Cost: 18,000 Min Holds: 30 Maximum Holds: 60 Main Drive Cost: 2,000 Max Fighters: 300 Maximum Shields: 500 Computer Cost : 3,200 Move rate/day: 90 Offensive Odds: 0.8:1 Ship Hull Cost : 13,000 Mine Max: 2 Beacon Max: 20 Ship Base Cost : 36,200 Genesis Max: 2 Long Range Scan? Yes TransWarp Drive? No Planet Scanner? Yes Max Fighters Per Attack: 100 Photon Missiles? No Ship Category #9 Ship Class : Imperial StarShip The commercial version of a Federation StarShip is not available to just anyone. This craft is only available to those who are commissioned by the Federation to aid in their cause. StarShips are the most closely guarded technology in existence. They can carry massive assault power and through the use of the TransWarp drive, they can deliver this power almost anywhere. The Imperial StarShip is truly the most powerful ship that a private individual can command. More information about qualifying for a Federal commission is available at a Police station near you. Basic Hold Cost: 32,000 Min Holds: 40 Maximum Holds: 150 Main Drive Cost: 32,100 Max Fighters:30,000 Maximum Shields: 2,000 Computer Cost : 32,500 Move rate/day: 50 Offensive Odds: 1.5:1 Ship Hull Cost : 32,000 Mine Max: 125 Beacon Max: 150 Ship Base Cost :128,600 Genesis Max: 10 Long Range Scan? Yes TransWarp Drive? Yes Planet Scanner? Yes Max Fighters Per Attack:10,000 Photon Missiles? Yes Ship Category #10 Ship Class : Havoc GunStar The Havoc Gunstar is a recently developed ship that owes its existance to new developments in micro-miniaturization. This mid-sized ship is the only one of its size to be able to house a TransWarp drive. Though it doesn't carry a large amount of holds to fuel the TransWarp, it still has a decent T-Warp range and can arrive at its destination packing a moderate fighting force in the bargain. Watch for this ship to become the favorite of the Mercenary legions in the Universe. Basic Hold Cost: 5,000 Min Holds: 10 Maximum Holds: 40 Main Drive Cost: 10,000 Max Fighters: 3,000 Maximum Shields: 500 Computer Cost : 7,500 Move rate/day: 75 Offensive Odds: 1.2:1 Ship Hull Cost : 7,000 Mine Max: 5 Beacon Max: 5 Ship Base Cost : 29,500 Genesis Max: 1 Long Range Scan? Yes TransWarp Drive? Yes Planet Scanner? No Max Fighters Per Attack: 1,500 Photon Missiles? No Ship Category #11 Ship Class : StarMaster The StarMaster represents the latest in technological advances for star travel, meeting the needs of those who desire a ship with great speed and medium cargo capacity. Developed to counter the growing threat of space piracy, the StarMaster posesses a formidable fire control and weapons system, and a high shield capacity. The price for this state-of-art craft is not cheap, but discerning traders will find that the investment will pay for itself in the long run. Basic Hold Cost: 15,000 Min Holds: 30 Maximum Holds: 70 Main Drive Cost: 10,000 Max Fighters: 5,000 Maximum Shields: 1,000 Computer Cost : 9,000 Move rate/day: 80 Offensive Odds: 1.4:1 Ship Hull Cost : 14,000 Mine Max: 50 Beacon Max: 50 Ship Base Cost : 48,000 Genesis Max: 5 Long Range Scan? Yes TransWarp Drive? No Planet Scanner? Yes Max Fighters Per Attack: 2,000 Photon Missiles? No Ship Category #12 Ship Class : Constellation The Constellation is the direct offspring of the Correlian Battleship. While not quite as powerful as its distinguished parent, the Constellation makes its own mark with greater speed and range. Traders have dubbed it the "baby battleship", but this "infant" is one of the most powerful and maneuverable ships available in the universe today. Basic Hold Cost: 10,000 Min Holds: 20 Maximum Holds: 70 Main Drive Cost: 10,000 Max Fighters: 5,000 Maximum Shields: 750 Computer Cost : 8,500 Move rate/day: 60 Offensive Odds: 1.4:1 Ship Hull Cost : 12,000 Mine Max: 25 Beacon Max: 50 Ship Base Cost : 40,500 Genesis Max: 2 Long Range Scan? Yes TransWarp Drive? No Planet Scanner? Yes Max Fighters Per Attack: 2,000 Photon Missiles? No Ship Category #13 Ship Class : T'Khasi Orion The T'Khasi Orion is the perfect ship for traders who want the speed and cargo capacity of the Merchant Freighter but need a bit more firepower. Offering substantially higher combat odds and fighter capacity, the T'Khasi Orion is an excellent intermediate ship. Basic Hold Cost: 15,000 Min Holds: 30 Maximum Holds: 60 Main Drive Cost: 10,000 Max Fighters: 750 Maximum Shields: 750 Computer Cost : 4,250 Move rate/day: 80 Offensive Odds: 1.1:1 Ship Hull Cost : 6,750 Mine Max: 5 Beacon Max: 20 Ship Base Cost : 36,000 Genesis Max: 1 Long Range Scan? Yes TransWarp Drive? No Planet Scanner? Yes Max Fighters Per Attack: 250 Photon Missiles? No Ship Category #14 Ship Class : Tholian Sentinel Young corporations in need of planetary defense should consider the Sentinel. With its new planetary combat guidance system, this ship's normal combat odds of 1:1 shoot up to 4:1 when defending a corporate planet. When an enemy ship enters a sector containing a Sentinel set in defense of a corporate planet, the hostile vessel must first destroy the Sentinel and all of its fighters before it may land and attempt any action toward the planet. Remember: The Sentinel was designed primarily for Planetary defense, if used for offensive purposes its combat odds are 1:1. Basic Hold Cost: 5,000 Min Holds: 10 Maximum Holds: 50 Main Drive Cost: 10,000 Max Fighters: 3,000 Maximum Shields: 1,000 Computer Cost : 6,000 Move rate/day: 54 Offensive Odds: 1.0:1 Ship Hull Cost : 6,000 Mine Max: 50 Beacon Max: 10 Ship Base Cost : 27,000 Genesis Max: 1 Long Range Scan? Yes TransWarp Drive? No Planet Scanner? No Max Fighters Per Attack: 1,000 Photon Missiles? No Ship Category #15 Ship Class : Taurean Mule "Big, slow and ugly...", seem to be the words most often overheard when someone is describing the Taurean Mule. Designed in direct competition with the CargoTran, the Mule is somewhat faster and possesses a higher cargo capacity, but it is even more vulnerable to piracy and attack than it's competitor. However, this is still a good ship for traders who have staked out "safe" trade lanes and do not have to worry about enemy attacks. Basic Hold Cost: 25,000 Min Holds: 40 Maximum Holds: 150 Main Drive Cost: 10,000 Max Fighters: 300 Maximum Shields: 500 Computer Cost : 3,300 Move rate/day: 50 Offensive Odds: 0.5:1 Ship Hull Cost : 15,300 Mine Max: 0 Beacon Max: 20 Ship Base Cost : 53,600 Genesis Max: 2 Long Range Scan? Yes TransWarp Drive? No Planet Scanner? Yes Max Fighters Per Attack: 150 Photon Missiles? No --- What isn't immediately obvious is that, as you buy each hold, the price for the next hold goes up. What this means is that, when you're told the next hold you can buy will cost xxx, you can't just multiply xxx times the number of holds you want and arrive at the total price. Other things being equal, you prob DON'T want to buy holds piecemeal. --- - by Leonard Adolph: I figured out hold cost some time ago. Just for fun, here it is again. SUM(216+20*(x-1),a..b) Where a is the number of holds on your ship and b is the number of holds desired. Add up all values for the formula (SUM) replacing x with all values from a to b. The above formula works in a program called Ultimate Calculator. --- * by Leonard Adolph Argh! You people are driving me crazy! ;-) I have in the past figured out and posted the formula for cost for holds you buy. I won't bother resubmiting that information at this time. But... When you sell a ship the price paid by the shipyards for holds is: INT (holds * (180 + (holds - 1) * 8.1)) for a ship with 0 kills and 0 portings. The 8.1 figure will decrease with enough ports and kills by a ship. If you don't know what the INT is, don't worry about it. Just drop anything to the right of the decimal point in the answer. BTW, 1821 holds is the turn around point and that amount of holds brings 27,172,962 credits for the holds. The above formula matches the price paid for holds up to 1821 and fails after that. I have no idea why that figure is the turn around point but I suspect it has to do with Turbo Pascal's Longint being divided by 100 (percentage?) and the floating value for the 8.1 in the formula, depending on ports and kills. A ship with 1822 holds, 66 ports and 5 kills brings 25,303,922 for the holds. The same ship with 0 kills and 0 ports brings 27,143,659 credits for the holds, less than what is paid for 1821 holds. If the price of holds in The Mall is set at 17,207 each, the dreaded 1821 (renamed by me) holds bug will be eliminated. That will make the cost of 1539 holds (1821 - 282) more than what will be paid for them in the Shipyards. If maximum holds are modified higher than 250 the price of holds in The Mall should be recalculated higher: 27,172,962 / (1821 - (maxholds + 32)) I have great hopes that the next version of The Mall will price holds the same as in the game. (Neil?) That should help the "good guys" as a ship with 300-400 holds could hit the trading pairs as heavy as steal/sell but as an "evil" I would not want to risk a few million credits worth of holds getting busted stealing 30,000 credits worth of equipment. I *would* follow the "good guys" around though and rob those pairs blind. I have not done much testing on the effects of ports and kills on pricing but I do know that 101 ports drops prices by less than 10% and 9 ports does not affect prices. 9 ports is of course what is used to bug a CT to 282 holds and port at Stardock, assuming that stealing at a port (and getting busted) adds to the ports your ship has. I am not sure if it does or not at this time. Also BTW. Just kidding about the driving me crazy part. I enjoy this stuff. :-) --- More on holds cost: * by Woody Weaver -=> Quoting Leonard Adolph to Brendan Connell <=- BC> I don't know the algorithim, [for the cost of holds] although I've BC> found that when you get to about 135 holds, each new one starts at just BC> over 2000 credits and goes up. LA> I figured out hold cost some time ago. Just for fun, here it is again. LA> SUM(216+20*(x-1),a..b) LA> Where a is the number of holds on your ship and b is the number of LA> holds desired. Add up all values for the formula (SUM) replacing x LA> with all values from a to b. Good work Leonard, but there is a little more you can say. The constant, 216, varies a little bit; I've seen as low as 200 and as high as 240. Also, you can rewrite the formula without the sum, by using the trick that if s = a + (a+1) + (a+2) + ... + (b-1) + b [ write sum forwards ] s = b + (b-1) + (b-2) + ... + (a+1) + a [ write sum backwards ] so: 2s = (b-a+1)(a+b). Your formula works out to cost = (194+20a)+(194 + 20(a+1))+...+(194+20b) = 194(b-a+1) + 20(b-a+1)(b+a)/2 = (194 + 10(b+a) )(b-a+1) So, for example, to go from 20 holds to 75 holds (b=75, a=20) it would take cost = (194 + 10 (95) ) (56) = 64,064 credits. ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ [ Bugs in the game ] ÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛ - by Joel Downer: This is Joel Downer's Top 14 Bugs list, covering the major bugs with the exception of the planet cloning bug. Planet cloning will not work in version 1.03d, and makes playing 1.03 a pretty useless endeavor. Sysops can upgrade to 1.03d without reseting the game, and that is highly recommended. Well, giving a list of *ALL* the bugs in 1.03(d) would be impractical: there are over a hundred of them. What I can do, though, is list the thirteen or fourteen that make the biggest difference to the game. 1. THE STEAL-SELL CYCLE: Stealing equipment from ports is a very good way to make money in this version. You can sell equipment to a port, steal it back, and repeat the cycle without leaving the sector for very substantial profits. 2. THE HOLDS BUG: If you tell the game that you want to steal 365 units of equipment or 660 units of organics (never mind how many holds you have), and you don't have high enough experience to get away with stealing that much, you will get busted and *gain 32 holds* rather than losing any. To learn the value of this bug, try buying a Colonial Transport with base holds, "holds-bug" until you're up to 282 holds, and sell it back at the StarDock. 3. THE (CLASSIC) MEGAHOLDS BUG: Using the holds bug, it's possible to load your ship up to its normal maximum plus 32. Unfortunately, if you try to use those 32 extra holds, you will lose them the first time you dock at a port. The megaholds bug is a solution. Load your ship with colonists, and steal *one unit* of fuel ore or organics from a port. Drop off the colonists on Terra. As long as you don't get busted, surrender to the Ferrengi, jettison cargo, or try to trade or pick up the commodity you used to "lock in" the extra holds, you can keep them and use them for trading or stealing. 4. THE (SUPER) MEGAHOLDS BUG: So, max + 32 isn't good enough for you, eh? Another bug allows you to load your ship with any number of holds, if you have the patience. First, use the "classic" megaholds bug to get up to max + 32. Now, fill your holds with colonists. Your next job is to lose most of your holds. One way to do this is to surrender repeatedly to the Ferrengi, but the most turn-efficient way is to get busted repeatedly: trying to steal 364 holds of equipment can take away 32 holds a pop. You must not throw away *all* your holds, but the more you lose, the faster the process goes. Once you're very close to zero, go to a port where you haven't been busted and steal one unit of a commodity you don't want to trade (probably organics or fuel ore). You've just created some "imaginary holds"; you can now go back to Sol, buy some *real* holds, load those holds up with colonists, and start getting busted again... 5. THE CORPORATE MEGAHOLDS BUG: This bug allows you to lock in "artificial holds" like the ones created by the megaholds bug, but it can create *any number* of holds (up to 32,767), it takes only a *few* turns, it doesn't cost nearly as much experience as the super megaholds bug, *and* it can create tons of free equipment on your planet. To use it, you need a teammate and a citadel that's safe to park in. Your planet must have some equipment on it, though not nearly as much as it will have when you're done. First of all, make sure that your teammate is in the citadel and that her ship is *unlocked*; her holds should also be empty. Unlock your own ship (they are locked by default) by (R)emaining in the Citadel, and saying (Y)es when it asks about trading ships. Once you've unlocked your ship, you can immediately go back into the game. Now you need to use the (A)ll command out on the planet's surface to take all the equipment you can carry. Go into the (C)itadel, (E)xchange Ships, say (Y)es to confirm, (L)eave the Citadel, and (D)isplay the planet. Go back into the (C)itadel, (E)xchange, say (Y)es, (L)eave, take (A)ll, and (D)isplay the planet once more. Strangely enough, you'll now have twice as many goods loaded onto your ship as you have cargo holds. If you wanted, you could now leave the planet and "lock in" the extra holds the same way you did with the Megaholds and Super Megaholds bugs -- but let's get greedy. Start repeating the last key sequence -- "CEYLAD" -- to load your ship with more and more equipment. Something strange will happen every time you change into your teammate's ship and take (A)ll: his ship will be loaded with a *negative* quanity of equipment, and equipment will magically be *created* on the planet. I usually continue this process until my ship has about 25,000 equipment on it, and my teammate's has 25,000 empty holds. I can now "lock in" my holds with organics, pick up some fuel ore, and TransWarp around the galaxy selling excess equipment. I could use my teammate's ship for moving colonists or trading anything *except* equipment. 6. THE SHIELD BUG: A Level V citadel with 1639 or more planetary shields is impossible to invade. Attempts to destroy those shields are futile. That's all, folks. 7. FIGHTER/SHIELD OVERLOAD BUG: Ships have built-in limits for fighters and shields -- the Scout Marauder is only supposed to carry 250 fighters and 100 shields. If you use negative numbers when transferring fighters and shields through the corporate transfer menus, however, those limits don't apply. If you have a teammate *take* a negative number *from* you instead of giving you a positive number, he/she can load your ship with up to 32,767 shields and 32,767 fighters. (For a faster way to overload with shields, try using negative numbers in your citadel. ) However you do it, be warned: if you dock at a port with extra fighters and shields, you will lose them! 8. SO MUCH FOR STARDOCK!: A Scout Marauder, overloaded with 32,767 fighters and at least 20,000 shields using the methods outlined above, has very good odds of destroying StarDock or any of the Class 0 ports. Just load the ship up and attack: *DON'T* break off your attack until you're out of fighters, and you have about 2-in-3 odds of success. 9. THE MORONIC FERRENGI: The game makes neutralizing the Ferrengi very, very easy. All you need to do to insulate yourself against their attacks, for example, is carry one fighter and many shields. When a Ferrengi attacks you, he will only do 0-2 damage points at a time. Even worse: to knock the Ferrengi completely out of the game, all you have to do is destroy the fighters in their home sector and deploy 3,000 of your own fighters in the sector. From that point on, they won't regenerate, even if they still own Ferrengal: all that'll be left are the Ferrengi already wandering around the galaxy. In the first few weeks of the game, this tactic costs less than a million credits. 10. THE INFALLIBLE CLOAK: Buy cloaks. They're a great bargain. In 1.03d, it's impossible to attack a cloaked ship, and regardless of what the docs say, cloaks *do not* fail. Compared to the cost of being blown up, 25,000 credits a day is trivial. 11. SHIELDS AND P-MISSILES: The docs are also wrong about the effect of shields on the p-wave. P-missiles *do* work against shielded planets. They also work against shielded ships and ships parked in FedSpace. 12. THE USELESS SENTINEL: Don't buy the Tholian Sentinel. Period. The Sentinel is supposed to have 4:1 odds when defending a planet against an invader. This feature doesn't work. If an invader attacks the *ship* first -- rather than trying to land and *then* attacking the ship -- the Sentinel only gets 1:1 combat odds. 13. MANY FERRENGI AND ALIENS: When a sysop rerolls the game with BIGBANG, several files (including CONVO.DAT, WALLDAT.DAT, and, most important, FERRENGI.DAT and ALIENS.DAT) are not properly initialized. Some new games will be swarming with powerful aliens and Ferrengi. Sysops should remember to delete these four files when restarting games. 14. THE "6666" BUG: Always set your military reaction level to 0% if you have more than 12,000-13,000 fighters on your planet. If an invader attacks without a p-missile, the invader has more than 26,000 fighters on his ship, and your MRL is greater than zero, *all* of your fighters will attack him and will be destroyed -- even if you have many more fighters than you should need to kill the invader. Again, this list is *anything* but complete: it's just an attempt to outline the strategically most important bugs. Hope it's useful. --- - by Joel Downer: Many people have asked me about a complete list of TW bugs. I've never prepared something like this, and I doubt I ever will. What I usually post in response to that question is a list of the fourteen most tactically important bugs in the game -- bugs like the shield bug, the megaholds bugs, the holds bug, steal-sell, the fighter overload bug, etc. Gerard Droege and I also prepared a list of more minor bugs last year, in response to a request from Gary Martin. We tried to skip the most obvious problems (already listed for Gary by Kris Lewis), and come up with some of the more obscure errors. At that time, in a few hours of brainstorming, we came up with 52 bugs (again, not including the most obvious ones). If we had more hours and lots of energy to repeat the process now, I would estimate that we could double the length of the list. I recently found this list on an old archive disk. After I sent it to Gary, I backed it up and forgot about it. I received word from Kris that Gary had fixed all of the problems on the list in "just a few hours" of coding. Given that assertion, I'm surprised to see some of the same problems cropping up in the 2.0 beta. I think that reposting the list now might be helpful to the beta team, and might satisfy some curiosity on the echo. Additional bugs in Version 1.03 compiled by Joel Downer and Gerard Droege 1. shield overload using negative numbers in citadel. 2. Alien % alignment bug in V-Screen in early game. 3. All evil aliens appear as annoyances instead of by true rank. 4. Good aliens' rank is unrelated to true experience. 5. Cloak is 100% reliable (vs. what the docs say). 6. Permanent p-missile -- if you quit the game while a p-missile is in effect, the q-cannon will sometimes fail until another p-missile fired. (?unverified). 7. holds bug (stealing 365, losing -32 holds) 8. p-missiles are not affected by planetary shielding system (vs. the information in the docs and the menu screens). 9. player kicked out of the game when blown up destroying a planet (as if ship was destroyed; actually in *** Escape Pod ***). 10. player kicked out interrupting sector display invading Ferrengal 11. TEDIT frequently hangs when accessed directly after TW in local mode (locking up computer). 12. game flakes out after players have more than 10-12 billion credits 13. kill-kill cycle for experience and credits 14. repetitive colonist dump 15. cost for changing name follows no reasonable pattern -- always resets to 100 credits when player exits game 16. Repeated insults after unreasonable price -- you keep getting "Make a real offer" stuff even when you get back to negotiating 17. Port quantities change when thrown out of port (violation of law of conservation of matter . . . ). Evil player can use this bug magically to "create" commodities that otherwise aren't available (excellent for moving planets out of contested areas). 18. Allowed to steal from port under construction (bug?). 19. 5 point stealing cycle 20. Ability to protect yourself from Ferrengi by carrying 0 fighters a many shields. 21. integer overloads on alignment (when placing large bounties and killing many fighters), with prices at Class 0 ports and in hardware emporium. (When carrying millions of credits, Class 0 reports that you can buy a virtually random number of fighters and shields between 32,000 and -32,000, depending on amount and ship type.) 22. Corporate planet scan must be done twice to get correct information. 23. Corporate planet scan confuses current planet record about level of credits: makes the game think that current planet has same credit level as the last planet on the list. 24. Quasar cannon only consumes half as much ore on atmosphere fire as it should. 25. No way to interrupt ship catalog -- end up getting 19 ship lists. 26. Ether probe "forgets" current sector and self-destructs without reaching objective. (Plot course, move, then fire. It'll get mixed up virtually every time.) 27. Ether probe that cannot find target clears avoids without prompting the user. 28. Downloading CIM information before plotting a course and doing a port report causes game to crash. 29. "planet-busting" for experience 30. can't interrupt failed course plot (e.g., with {Esc} key); takes up to 1.5 minutes on some systems. 31. BIGBANG forces sysop to reinsert code (bug?) 32. BIGBANG doesn't always reset aliens list, Ferrengi, or tavern conversation 33. Getting murdered in the underground resets experience, alignment; doesn't disturb assets. (bug?) 34. Federation-posted bounty in the log is extremely inaccurate (small percentage of final bounty). 35. Sysop cannot cloak ships using TEDIT. (May not be a bug, but it's *VERY* annoying. 36. Space bar aborts *display* of planet scanner, but doesn't abort the scan. Scanners turn out to be an enormous nuisance. 37. Player penalized for not attacking an enemy when he/she is carrying zero fighters (and cannot attack). 38. Possible to steal from port that hasn't been finished yet. This may not be a bug, but combined with the fact that upgrading a port under construction directly increases *quantities available to steal* from the port, it makes the game silly sometimes. 39. Docs bug. For some strange reason, the help files suggest that it is possible to create more than one port in a single sector. Unless we're all missing something important, that's not so. 40. Last six characters of personal messages and corporate memos are truncated. Quite confusing for new players. 41. Every time a player who has the rank Fleet Admiral (but who does not have 32,000 experience) does something to earn experience he/she gets "promoted" to Fleet Admiral again. 42. "Scan sector" from citadel rarely works, even when enemy forces are deployed in the sector. 43. When a player is destroyed by a corbomite reaction when destroying another ship, the name of the player/alien/Ferrengi piloting the other ship is lost and replaced by the name of a Nebula or other random item. 44. When a player carrying colonists is accosted by Ferrengi, his/her amount of holds is decremented, but his/her number of holds of colonists stays the same. (Ends up with more holdsful of items than holds.) 45. (May be bug and may not be.) When a player tries to warp to a distant site that is avoided (accessing the course-plotting system), a warning system repeatedly interferes with the warp. On the other hand, the avoids system will *NOT* warn a player about a warp into an adjacent avoided sector. (This feature is hardest on novice players.) 46. Mail and log items frequently scroll off a 24-line display, despite built-in pause feature. Best guess: the counter function miscounts three-line items as two-line items. 47. When a CEO is deleted for non-play, the corporation continues to exist. All players can desert the corporation, and at least for a time, the corporation continues to exist *with no members*. 48. Player can frustrate traces by the Grimy Trader by naming his/her ship "The Merchant Marines." (bug? certainly *useful*...) 49. Player can acquire list of unexplored ports by changing ship name to "The Merchant Marines," and doing a Trader Trace on him/herself (again, lends itself to some *very* handy applications...). 50. Overflow in Tavern prices. When a (silly) sysop sets a very high date, players are *paid* for asking for the Underground password and eating and drinking in the Pub. 51. When a player is deleted from a game by the sysop, and is parked in a citadel at the time of deletion, his/her ship is still considered available for trade. Furthermore, if the planet is destroyed, the message "[PLAYER NAME] GOT BLOWN UP TOO!" appears in the log. 52. Players can neutralize the StarDock as a trading point (one solid attack with 4,000 fighters in a BattleShip will do it), and it can be upgraded. This element is primarily important because of the steal-sell cycle, which evidently won't be an issue in the next version anyway... --- - by Mike Magero: The Magic Moth Bug: ** Requires Hostile Fighters in the Sector ** 1. Get a corp flag with 1500 shields and 20,000 fighters. The ship type is unimportant but a ship with a large fighter/shield capacity will work better. 2. Take your ship and move to the sector where the enemy planets are. 3. Enter the sector. The Q-cannons will fire. Each planet will shoot XXXX damage points. You may have lost all of your shields. You can't get shields back. You still have all or most of your fighters. 4. You will be given the attack, "(A,I,R)", prompt. 5. Choose the attack option, and attack with 0 fighters. You will have killed 0 enemy fighters, but the Q-cannons will fire again. 6. You will be given the attack, "(A,I,R)", prompt. 7. Choose the Info option. Make a note of how many fighters the info list says you have. (*NOTE* It will be different than the number the attack prompt says you have.) 8. Do NOT let the number of fighters on the info list fall down too far, If you do you will get blown up! The number of fighters on the info screen should be high enough to let you get blasted again, if the info screen does NOT show you have enough fighters to take another blast go to step 10. 9. Ok it is time to get the Q-cannons to shoot again. Go up to step Nnumber 5 and repeat untill you are almost out of fighters or the Q-cannons stop shooting whichever comes first. When that happens go to step 10. 10. You will be given the attack, "(A,I,R)", prompt. 11. Choose the attack option and attack with 1 fighter. (You can't get this one back, so only use 1 fighter.) 12. Choose the Info option. Make a note of how many fighters the info list says you have. (It may or may not be different than the number the attack prompt says you have.) 13. You will have regained some (usually all) of your fighters now, except those used up when you first entered the sector and took fire. If the number in the info list does not match the attack prompt then go to step 10 and repeat until the fighter counts match. * Notes* 1. You should make sure that your ship can withstand at least two blasts right in a row. (The first one when you come in the sector and the one that hits when you attack the first time.) 2. Go in as strong as possible so you can milk the cannons dry before getting your fighters back. This is not imperative but it helps ALOT. 3. Do not kill the fighters in the sector when you first come into the sector! They are what enable you to use this bug! Hostile fighters can be generated by leaving corp fighters and then quiting the corp. (Assumeing you're not the CEO this method of making hostile fighters is acceptable, if you're the CEO think twice before you quit the corp) Final Note: You will lose and not be able to get back whatever is lost on the first entrance into the sector. So if you have 1000 shields and 5000 fighters and it hits you for 1200 damage you will only be able to get back up to 4800 fighters. There is no way to avoid this. Also you will lose all shields regardless of when they were lost. --- - by Janos Szamosfalvi MAKE.MONEY.FAST (TW) = Port rejuvenation and conditioning v1.0 (I know that 2.0 beta is already out so this is a bit late) Prolog: Some of you may have noticed that trading becomes exceedingly difficult and earnings will drop in games where the CMH bug is widely used. Port rejuvenation is a revolutionary new method (as far as I know) that provides a steady income for CMH users in v1.03d while completely evading detection by TWUNBUG if used properly. Imagine having a port that buys 25,000 Eqp over and over again, say, 20 times in a 100 turns game. No need to worry about raped ports, ferrengi, mines, hostile fighters or Quasar Canons, and the only time you have to leave your home sector is when you go to buy fighters or invade your opponents' planets.