*******HINTS GALORE******* Special TradeWars Edition. Enjoy! #1 Bye Bye Terra! If you ring fedspace with fighters you can create planets in fedspace, including sector one, by making new player accounts. After several hundred accounts you can overload sector one and have a 1/3 chance of destroying Terra through a planetary collision. If Terra is destroyed the very next planet created will fill slot number one. Although this new planet (which you can put anywhere you would normally put a planet) looks perfectly normal, when you land on it you get the normal landing on Terra routine. This new "Terra" starts out with a population of zero but reproduces at the normal rate after that. This only works when the Sysop allows you to make multiple accounts. #2 Planetary Collisions In 1.0x you have to TWARP a planet in to overload a sector and cause a collision. In V2 you can overload any sector (except sector one) by just shooting off gtorps. I personally think this is a good thing because if forces players to put up sector defenses instead of relying on planetary defenses alone. Unfortunately, photons disable sector defenses allowing players to shoot off gtorps without defeating the sector defenses. This is one of several reasons why photon missiles should *always* be disabled in V2 Beta. #3 Photons Aside from the consideration mentioned above, when a photon is launched into a sector where a player is staying in a citadel they lose their turns for the rest of the day. Neither ship nor planetary shields offer any protection against this. Sysops can deal effectively with this by leaving photons disabled. #4 Tholian Sentinel In 1.0x the Tholian sentinel got 4:1 odds when defending a planet. This could be circumvented, however, by attacking the ship before trying to land on the planet. This meant that when dealing with a knowledgeable player it was essentially useless. In V2, however, the Tholian *always* gets 4:1 odds when manned by a player who is off-line whether it is defending a planet or not! This makes it a great ship to spend the night in. #5 Planet Types CITADEL SPECIFICATIONS IN TW2002 V2 BETA All citadels earn 2% :( interest regardless of type. Productions: colonists (thousands) needed to produce one K colonists planet unit of: planet for maximum type F# ORE ORG EQU capacity** production description M 10 3 7 13 100/100/100 15,000 Earth K 15 2 100 500 200/50/10 20,000 Desert O 15 20 2 100 100/1000/50 100,000 Oceanic L 12 2 5 20 200/200/100 20,000 Mountainous C 25 50 100 500 20/50/10 50,000 Glacial H 50 1 na*@ 500 1000/10/100 50,000 Volcanic U na* na* na* na* 10/10/10 0 Gaseous # Units of product to produce 1 fighter * production of this product not possible on this type of planet ** ore/org/equ in thousands @ colonists left in production of Organics on volcanic worlds will die immediately! Citadel Construction total Level 1 Level 2 Level 3 Level 4 Level 5 Level 6 days E DAYS 4 4 5 10 5 15 43 A K COL 1000 2000 4000 6000 6000 6000 MR ORE 300 200 500 1000 300 1000 T ORG 200 50 250 1200 400 1200 H EQU 250 250 500 1000 1000 2000 D DAYS 6 5 8 5 4 8 36 E KCOL 1000 2400 4400 7000 8000 7000 KS ORE 400 300 600 700 300 700 E ORG 300 80 400 900 400 900 R EQU 600 400 650 800 1000 1600 T O C DAYS 6 5 8 5 4 8 36 E KCOL 1400 2400 4400 7000 8000 7000 OA ORE 500 200 600 700 300 700 N ORG 200 50 400 900 400 900 I EQU 400 300 650 800 1000 1600 C M O DAYS 2 5 5 8 5 12 37 U KCOL 400 1400 3600 5600 7000 5600 LN ORE 150 200 600 1000 300 1000 T ORG 100 50 250 1200 400 1200 A EQU 150 250 700 1000 1000 2000 I N G L DAYS 5 5 7 5 4 8 34 A KCOL 1000 2400 4400 6600 9000 6600 CC ORE 400 300 600 700 300 700 I ORG 300 80 400 900 400 900 A EQU 600 400 650 700 1000 1400 L V O DAYS 4 5 8 12 5 18 52 L KCOL 800 1600 4400 7000 10000 7000 HC ORE 500 300 1200 2000 3000 2000 A ORG 300 100 400 2000 1200 2000 N EQU 600 400 1500 2500 2000 5000 I C V A DAYS 8 4 5 5 4 8 34 P KCOL 3000 3000 8000 6000 8000 6000 UO ORE 1200 300 500 500 200 500 R ORG 400 100 500 200 200 200 O EQU 2500 400 2000 600 600 1200 U S As you can see, there are substantial differences between the different types of planets! #6 Planetary Transporters You can install a Planetary transporter on any planet with a citadel. It costs 50,000 credits to install the transporter and 25,000 credits per sector to upgrade the transporter. These credits are taken from the funds on your ship *not* from the citadel. The planetary transporter transports both you and your ship. The rules are the same as for TWARP. If you transport to a sector with 1 or more of your personal/corp fighters, to an empty sector, or to fedspace if commissioned, you'll be safe. Otherwise, you're toast! As with TWARP, fuel or is used, however it uses 10 units per sector and takes the fuel ore from the planet. Transporting requires one turn and you must have a turn or you can't do it. #7 TWARP The TWARP drive is essentially the same in V2 as in 1.03(d) with a couple of exceptions. Twarping requires the same number of turns that it takes to move one sector. So if you're in an ISS which takes 4 turns per warp, and you have 3 turns left you won't be able to TWARP. Commisioned players can TWARP directly to fedspace, which comes in handy when going to stardock or colonizing. It has been reported that the game sometimes forgets which sector the stardock is in and thus doesn't find the locator beam. This has never happened to me but if it happens to you DON'T blind jump! Speaking of blind jumps, they are much more hazardous in V2 because of Limpet mines which don't show up on holoscans or EPROBE reports. There is an option in the computer which disables TWARP. It is called TWARP preference. This eliminates the message asking if you want to engage TWARP which can be annoying if when traveling to non-adjacent sectors with regular warp. #8 AUTO PILOT The autopilot has been improved. It now shows the number of "hops" and the number of "turns" to reach a non-adjacent sector. Single stepping is much more useful. Instead of stopping in every sector and making you engage warp again, it asks if you want to stop allowing you to exercise several options including porting and scanning and then asks again. You can then continue on by simply pressing N. This can be very useful when you are looking for something! #9 LIMPET MINES Limpet mines attach to the ships which enter the sector where they are deployed. SD and Class 0 ports will offer to remove Limpets for a fee of 5000 credits but can't tell who they belong to. Attached limpets will reduce the trade-in value of a ship. If limpet mines you leave do not get removed when you can tell where they are, and thus where the ship they attached to are by doing a mine scan (K). Leaving Limpets in a sector where a player you're attacking is will *not* cause one to attach to their escape pod, too bad that would be a good strategy! Mine disrupters will not get rid of deployed limpets. You can get rid of limpets by repeatedly entering and leaving a sector. If someone else's limpets are in a sector you will not be able to leave limpet or armid mines of your own. As with armid mines, limpet mines cannot be deployed in fedspace and will be removed from Major Space Lanes. #10 Cloaking devices Cloaking failure does occur in this version. It isn't supposed to happen until after 24 hours but it can happen the next time EXTERN runs, even if it has been only a few minutes. The cloaking failure rate is Sysop configurable and can be set to 0% in which case cloaking failure will not happen. Unfortunately, this setting is not displayed on the V screen. You cannot attack or photon a player who is cloaked but they will show up on a density scan as an anomaly. Limpet mines also show up as an anomaly but if you attempt to put a mine in the sector and the game lets you then there are no limpets there, and there must be a cloaked player. Be aware, however, that an anomaly will show up in the last sector that *you* cloaked in! You can leave fighters/mines in a sector where a player is cloaked. Be careful of Major Space Lanes! #11 Major Space Lanes It is wise to know where the Major space lanes are. This hasn't changed from 1.03(d) but many people are a little fuzzy on this point. The space lanes are from Sol (sector one) to Stardock and back. From SD to RYLOS and back. From SD to Alpha Centauri and back. And From Rylos To AC and back. Also Rylos and Alpha Centauri are themselves MSLs. The following diagram illustrates: SOL (fedspace) | | Stardock (fedspace) / \ / \ Rylos------Alpha Centauri (MSL) (MSL) Just remember that because of one way warps the path from one sector to another and the return path are not necessarily the same. #12 Death Delay First of all let's clarify what we are talking about. In 1.0X if you lost your escape pod or got murdered in the underground you couldn't get back into the game until the next day. That isn't what death delay means. If you self-destruct you can't get in that day or the next day either. This is not what death delay refers to either. Death delay is a Sysop configurable parameter that changes happens when your ship is destroyed and you wind up in an escape pod. If death delay is set to 0 you go about your business in the escape pod until you trade it in or lose it, just as in 1.0x. If the death delay is set to 1 and you lose your ship you will be a sitting duck in your escape pod until after midnight. If Death delay is set to 2 you will be stuck in an escape pod unable to enter the game all the way through the next day as well. The same applies to other death delay settings, you'll have to wait until midnight passes the number of times that death delay is set. Anything that destroys your ship while you are on-line will key death delay this includes being blown up with the planet, hitting navhazzard, atomic fusion and fighters/mines in the sector when you enter the game! Obviously, death delay can be very costly. There are three things about death delay that make it even worse: #1 It is *not* shown on the V screen! You won't know how is set until you lose your ship or someone tells you. #2 If your escape pod is attacked while you are "knocked out" the number of days set in the death delay will be added to your "sentence"! So if it is set to two and someone blows up your escape pod before you can get back in (a very likely occurrence) you'll have to wait *another* two days before you can get back in! [boy was I ticked off when I ran afoul of this!] #3 If you do get back into the game before somebody blows up your escape pod you will have only the turns that you had before being destroyed even if that was two days ago! #13 Alignment change for attacking deployed fighters There has been a lot of speculation concerning alignment changes that occur when you destroy deployed fighters. A lot of it is utter nonsense. Through experiments I have determined the proper formulas for calculating the alignment change for destroying deployed fighters. The formulas: +aligned fighters - aligned fighters good aligned AC=-(FL*FA)/10000 AC=+(FL*FA)/5000 player bad aligned AC=-(FL*FA)/5000 AC=+(FL*FA)/10000 player where: AC= Alignment change either positive or negative as indicated FL= Fighters *you* lost, *NOT* fighters you destroyed FA= Alignment signature of the fighters (ignoring sign) *= Times (multiplication) This leads to an interesting strategy when you are playing with a positive alignment against a player who has an ISS. Leave enough fighters (estimating from the above formulas and leaving extras to account for combat odds) so that if they attack them they'll get a negative alignment. Some good places to leave these fighters would be right outside their protected space or in a sector with a dummy planet which appears to be a tempting target. This strategy may lead to their ISS being destroyed by a Fed. #14 Anomalies Two things can cause an anomaly. A cloaked ship and limpet mines. Limpet mines will also cause a density reading that is not explained by anything visible in a holoscan. If there is an anomaly but no unexplained density then there is probably a cloaked ship there. There is no way to figure out who is there but that might be a good place to leave a limpet mine, so it will attach to the player when they uncloak. #15 Port Radiation Attempts to trade at a destroyed port will be fatal. You cannot build a port until port radiation clears. If you blind TWARP to a sector with a destroyed port you will be destroyed by fusion. Other than this, port radiation does nothing! Despite the "safety" officer's warning, there is no danger whatsoever from port radiation. You can build planets, scan, enter citadels, deploy mines and fighters, etc., without any danger of being destroyed, unless you hit the 25% navhazzard which is also created when a port is destroyed. #16 EXTERN LOCKUP If all the exits out of sectors 1-10 are blocked by as few as one fighter and any of the first ten sectors are overloaded by players EXTERN will lockup! #17 Blowing up planets First of all, the basic points awarded for blowing up planets *without* colonists: CITADEL LEVEL EXPERIENCE POINTS none 50 1 100 2 150 3 200 4 250 5 300 6 350 Now, additional points awarded for planets with colonists: ---------- COLONISTS EXPERIENCE POINTS 100 0 500 2 750 2 1000 4 2000 10 3000 14 4000 20 5000 24 6000 30 7000 34 8000 40 9000 44 10000 50 20000 100 (this pattern continues) Note the consistent pattern that emerges. Basically you get 1 experience point for every 200 colonists. Why you get 1 less point than expected with the odd thousands, I really don't know. In all cases you get an alignment change of -1 for blowing up a planet regardless of the citadel level or number of colonists, with the one exception noted below. If you do decide to kill off the players by using fighters to attack them your alignment will go down 1 point for each 10 groups of colonists killed. PLAYERS IN THE CITADEL There is one other thing you must consider about blowing up planets. That is what happens when there is a player or players in the citadel. When you blow up a planet with a player in a citadel the player is put in an escape pod which is tossed somewhere at random. You do not get their credits, their corbomite doesn't go off and you cannot collect a bounty. You do, however get an experience boost and alignment change but not the same as what you would get for blowing them up in the sector. If there is more than one player, the experience points add together and the alignment change either increases or decreases depending on whether the players had like or contrasting alignments. This is what you get for the player, if you attack them in the sector: (OF THEIRS) (OF THEIRS) YOUR ALIGNMENT THEIR ALIGNMENT ALIGNMENT CHANGE EXPERIENCE positive positive -50% 25% positive negative +50% 50% negative positive -50% 55% negative negative +50% 25% Note that the sign inicates whether your alignment is going up or down. Note also the anomoly that occurs when a negative player attacks a positive player. If you blow up the player with the planet: PLAYER'S ALIGNMENT ALIGNMENT CHANGE EXPERIENCE positive -33.3% 16.7% negative +33.3% 16.7% It makes no difference whether your alignment is positive or negative when you blow up the player with the planet. Note that these points and alignment change are in addition to to the -1 alignment change and the points awarded for blowing up the planet itself. This mean that if you blow up a planet with a player in the citadel who has a -1000 alignment your alignment will actually go up 332 points! #18 Shipstats/ratings Shipstats in TW2002 V2 (as of beta five) Ship max Type TI holds fighters shields STP TPW FPA odd bcn mine gen XR phton MERCRU 250 75 2500 400 HNY 3 750 1.0 50 50 5 5 NO SCOUT 125 25 250 100 DNY 2 250 2.0 10 0 0 0 NO MISFRI 200 60 400 400 NNN 3 2000 1.3 5 5 0 2 YES BATTLE 200 80 10000 750 HNY 4 3000 1.6 50 25 1 8 NO CORPFL 283 85 20000 1500 HYY 3 6000 1.2 100 100 1 10 NO COLTRN 417 250 200 500 NNY 6 100 0.6 10 0 5 7 NO CARTRN 313 125 400 1000 HNY 4 125 0.8 20 1 2 5 NO MERFRT 325 65 300 500 HNY 2 100 0.8 20 2 2 5 NO ISS 375 150 50000 2000 HYY 4 1000 1.5 150 125 10 15 YES HAVGUN 167 50 10000 3000 HYN 3 1000 1.2 5 5 1 6 NO STRMAS 243 73 5000 2000 HNY 3 1000 1.4 50 50 5 3 NO CONSTL 267 80 5000 750 DNY 3 2000 1.4 50 25 2 6 NO T'KASI 300 60 760 750 DNY 2 250 1.1 20 5 1 3 NO THOSEN 125 50 2500 4000 HNN 4 800 1.0* 10 50 1 3 NO TAMULE 375 125 300 600 HNY 4 150 0.5 20 0 1 5 NO INTCRU 27 40 100000 4000 HNY 15 15000 1.2 100 200 20 20 NO ASTRAD 250 50 3000 200 NNN 2 1000 1.0 5 10 0 0 NO BATCRU 250 75 8000 800 HNN 3 2000 1.2 15 25 3 3 NO DRNGHT 250 100 15000 1000 HNY 4 5000 1.4 25 50 6 5 YES *see description TI= trading index (maxholds/TPW)*10 rounded to nearest integer S= long range scanners available H holo D density N none T= Transwarp drive available Yes/No P= planet scanner available Yes/No TPW= turns per warp turns needed to move one sector or engage TWARP FPA= Fighters per attack odd= combat odds bcn= beacon capacity mine= mine capacity gen= genesis torpedo capacity XR= transporter range Phton= photons available Yes/No Now some evaluations of the ships, listing them in descending order by trading index. TI=417 Colonial Transport price: 63,600 While this ship has the biggest trading index and will certainly outshine all others when going back and forth between a pair, it has serious drawbacks. In applications such as Planetary trading and inter-planet transfers where the TPW is irrelevant, this is really the only ship. The high TPW may hurt this ship's trading ability in games where there are long distances between ports. Without even a density scanner and such a low fighter/shield capacity, not to mention poor combat odds, this is a dangerous ship indeed to be wandering around in! TI=375 Imperial Star Ship price: 329,000 This is usually considered to be the best ship in the game! With 4 TPW it does far better than the CT in games where there are long distances between trading pairs. The ability to use all available accessories comes in handy in many situations. Of course this ship is available only to commissioned players and thus cannot be used by evils. Besides being an excellent trader, this ship is superior in combat situations and makes a perfect primary ship or only ship for commissioned players. The cost and need to have a commission are a drawback in the early stages of the game. Taurean Mule price: 63,600 For trading purposes this ship is usually considered the equal of the ISS. It isn't well armored and has the worst combat odds in the game, but with a holoscanner it can generally avoid dangerous situations. Just don't plan on taking it into combat! Many traders use this ship as a step on their way to an ISS. TI=325 Merchant Freighter price: 33,400 While this ship scores slightly lower in TI than the mule and ISS, it's 2 TPW sometimes makes it a better trader in game with very long distances between trading pairs. Though lightly armored and clearly not a combat ship, it's holoscanner can keep it out of trouble and will help in finding more pairs. This is a great little ship to run around in during the early part of the game, especially if you single step and density scan and surrender to Ferrengi who hit you up. This ship is a great one to get into when first trading in your Merchant Cruiser or when you've been blown up and are getting back on your feet. TI=313 Cargo Transport price: 51,950 Sometimes called the poor man's ISS, this ship isn't bad but the mule is better in just about every way. It is hard to think of a good reason for buying this ship though it might be worth using if you should happen to capture one or trade one with a corp member. Though it has good shield capacity its fighter capacity and combat odds preclude its use for combat purposes. You could do a lot worse but you could do better so why bother? TI=300 T'Kasi Orion price: 42,250 Upon reviewing this ship the question that comes to mind is, why? This isn't just because of the funny name. Though this ship is better than most in terms of its trading index, it has the same TPW as the merchant freighter and 5 fewer holds. It has only slightly more fighters and shields than the Merchant Freighter so it really isn't a fighting ship despite its better combat odds. It's inability to use a holoscanner is a serious drawback making this ship a fool's choice. TI=283 Corporate Flagship price: 163,500 One of the legendary ships in TW, the CFS is usually *the* choice for CEOs who are not commissioned. Though many ships are better traders, this ship is a good choice for your primary craft and many solo traders form a corporation just so that they can get one. Its TW drive comes in handy and it's large capacity for fighters, combined with good combat odds make it an excellent fighting ship. Though the ISS is clearly a better choice for those who can use it, most games see a few of these being employed. This is one of only 3 ships that come with a shield scanner. TI=267 Constellation price: 72,500 This is another questionable vessel that seems to have no purpose. It isn't a good enough trader for day-to-day use and although it has reasonably good combat potential, it doesn't fare well compared to the Battleship, the one ship it is often compared to. The lack of a holoscanner makes it a poor choice for a primary ship. Experienced players will steer clear of this one! TI=250 Merchant Cruiser price: 41,300 This is usually thought of as the ship you start the game in, the one you trade in so you can get a better ship. This ship is the standard against which other ships are measured and for any specific purpose there is a ship that does better. Many ships are better traders and several make a better overall choice. Does anyone actually buy this one? Ferengi Assault Trader price: n/a Though you cannot actually buy this ship you can capture one from a Ferrengi captain. At first glance this ship looks like a scout with twice as many cargo holds and 12 times the fighter strength. Look again! Though it has 2 TPW, its 3000 fighters and 1.0 combat odds aren't enough most battles. The lack of even a density scanner makes it a poor choice for an explorer despite its mobility. You could sell this ship or overload fedspace with them and piling up a bunch of them in your home sector may offer some photon protection. Other than that, I cannot think of a good use for this ship even if you ignore the grudges that come with it. Ferengi Battle Cruiser price: n/a This ship is in many ways like a merchant cruiser with the same holds and similar capacity for accessories but much better fighter strength and combat odds. If you could only use one ship this ship might be worth considering but many ships are better traders and several are better armed. This ship is better than a merchant cruiser but who would buy a merchant cruiser? Not worth the trouble in my opinion. Ferengi Dreadnaught price: n/a This is the one Ferrengi craft that might be worth using! It isn't a good trader though it fares better in that department than a battleship or starmaster. The main attraction of this vessel is the ability to use photons and carry 15,000 fighters with 1.4 combat odds. If it had TWARP (which it doesn't) it would almost be an Evil ISS. While it isn't worth bothering with for commissioned players it might be valuable to evil players. If you plan to capture one or more of these don't attack any of the lesser Ferengi and keep the Ferengi sector free of non-ferengi fighters. The jury is still out on this one. TI=243 Starmaster price: 61,500 This was an excellent ship on v1.03 but things have changed! Though some traders still use it out of a twisted sense of loyalty, discerning traders will stay clear of it. Most ships, including the lowly merchant cruiser are better traders and many ships are better for combat purposes. It isn't good enough at anything to be an all purpose ship and you don't need an all purpose ship in V2 anyway. TI=200 Battleship price: 88,500 The battleship has the TPW of a cargo hauler without the holds. It has 10,000 fighters and 1.6 combat odds, making it good for many battles but not a ship to take out a well defended planet. This ship has its uses but it isn't for trading or hauling and it isn't a good primary ship. Missile Frigate price: 100,800 The main attraction of this ship is its ability to use photons. It is not good at trading but its 5000 fighters and 1.3 combat odds allow you to follow up on the pmissile but not enough to do much damage to a well defended planet. Still, the pmissile will take you past the sector defenses so you could use it to tow a starmaster and launch up to 5 gtorps. Of course, the frigate itself cannot launch any gtorps. This is clearly a special purpose ship which requires a little ingenuity to really take advantage of. TI=167 Havoc Gunstar price: 79,000 This is the only ship other than the ISS and the CFS that can use TWARP drive and thus the only TWARP capable ship that a noncommissioned non CEO can use. With only 50 cargo holds this is an exceptionally poor trader. The 50 cargo holds render this ship worthless for TWARP colonizing and trading. There are uses for this ship but it is clearly a special purpose craft which requires specific strategies to utilize. A novice could not be expected to envision such scenarios and would be well advised to steer clear of this one! TI=125 Scout Marauder price: 15,950 This ship is only half as good at trading as a merchant cruiser and thus isn't suitable for this purpose. As of Wide Beta Six this ship no longer has an escape pod! It's 2:1 combat odds can make it handy in certain specialized application despite its very poor fighter capacity. Because it cannot use a holoscanner, however, it isn't a good exploring ship. Tholian Sentinel price: 47,500 The main selling point of this ship is its "planetary defense system". This ship has 4:1 combat odds when manned by an off-line player and will not retreat from a planet even when overpowered, thus forcing the would be invader to destroy it. The off-line combat odds are there whether the ship is guarding a planet or not so it doesn't matter which the invader attacks first. This ship is a good ship to spend the night in even if you don't have a planet since the defensive odds are there anyway. You really should cloak if you can't get fedspace protection though, and using your ship to protect a planet which is probably not worth protecting is a questionable strategy at best! The Tholian is as bad as a scout for trading and its unremarkable fighter strength and 1.0 combat odds while on-line make it unsuitable for any other purpose. It has been suggested that the huge shield capacity of this ship make it ideal for ferrying shields to a planet and for that one purpose it might be useful. Otherwise, I'd skip this one! TI=27 Interdictor Cruiser price: 530,000 You are not seeing things, the IC really does have a ridiculously low TI of 27! I don't think anyone ever buys this ship for trading and since it can't land on a planet it is literally useless for colonizing. This ship has something called an Interdictor Generator. This device doesn't work while the player is off-line so it can be used only while you are on-line against aliens, Ferengi and off-line players. It doesn't disable their defenses, it simply keeps them from escaping. This is of questionable value and is clearly not a good reason for buying this ship. This ship does, however, have the largest fighter capacity in the game, twice that of an ISS! I can also carry 4000 shields, and has 1.2 combat odds. Obviously, this ship can overwhelm any other ship in the game and can take out a lot of sector fighters. It cannot finish an invasion, since it can't land on a planet, but it can certainly take out a large chunk of defenses so another ship can finish the job! In most games flying this ship is more of an ego trip than anything else, however, and it is truly the king of the special purpose vessels! TI=8 Escape Pod price: n/a This craft comes free of charge with any ship in the game, except a scout marauder, when they get destroyed while you are on-line. It is included in these listings only to make them complete. Though it can be outfitted with as many as five cargo holds, why bother? This craft is something to trade *in* not something to trade with! Its density scanner may keep you out of trouble on your way to the stardock. #19 Unmanned ships Many of you have discovered that unmanned ship cannot be attacked in fedspace. When you can attack an unmanned ship it gets about half its normal combat odds. With this limitation unmanned ships will be defended by fighters and shields. It is possible to capture an unmanned ship and if you do any corbomite will add to its trade-in value if you sell it to the shipyards. If you destroy an unmanned ship its corbomite will go off. There is an alignment "penalty" for attacking unmanned ships. You will lose 10% of your alignment for every 1000 fighters you lose attacking an unmanned ship. So if your alignment is +5000 and you lose 1000 fighters attacking an unmanned ship your alignment will go *down* 500 points, if it is -5000 it will go *up* 500 points. If you use 9999 fighters in one attack you will lose most of your alignment. If you attack using 15,000 in an IC and lose all 15,000 in an attack on an unmanned ship you will get an alignment opposite of 50% of your alignment before the attack. So, if your alignment was -100,000 it will be +50,000 and if it was +100,000 it will be -50,000. This is a real good way to lose access to an ISS if you aren't careful! #20 Ferringi If you attack a Ferringi, you can capture his ship. In fact, you cannot destroy a Ferrengi the way you can destroy an alien or trader. No matter how many fighters you use, you will capture the ship unless you don't use enough force to overpower it, in which case *you* will probably be attacked! Once you have captured a Ferrengi ship you have four options you can (a) destroy it (b) abandon it (c) use it (d) sell it to the shipyards. Option (a) is kind of fun but not of much practical value. Option (b) is perhaps the most viable option unless you find yourself running out of time running SSX (SST) loops, in which case unnecessary extra ships add greatly to the time required for each loop. This leads to option (c) and (d). Before you consider option (c) you may want to review the shipstats/ratings. Once you do you will probably have second thoughts about this option, Option (d) may sound attractive but towing the ship to stardock may cancel out the credits gained by selling it. Commisioned players can TWARP Tow the ship to Stardock but this brings up to another point. When you attack a Ferrengi you get a grudge. When you run from a Ferrengi you get a grudge. If you always run around in an ISS you probably won't worry about getting destroyed by Ferrengi, but you still lose shields/fighters. If you . sometimes use a lesser ship, such as a CT or mule (for running SSX loops for example) then you can't afford to collect grudges. Another consideration is the cost of fighters lost capturing ships verses the credits gained selling it. Also, in addition to the regular grudges shown in TEDIT there are "phantom grudges" which cause Ferrengi to attack in the sector where you destroyed another Ferrengi even though Tedit records show no grudges among these Ferrengi! As in 1.0x you can neutralize the Ferrengi by killing all the fighters in the Ferrengi home sector and leaving your own. As was also the case in 1.0x you can "inherit" grudges left by other players/corps which have been deleted. It is *not* necessary to invade or destroy the planet Ferrengal to neutralize the Ferrengi. #21 Sell Steal Transport (SSX/SST) loops In 1.0x the most effective money making ploy for evil players was the Sell/Steal cycle where you would sell equipment to a port, steal it back and sell it again. This was much more effective than paired port trading because you don't have to move between ports and you don't drain the ports. Also, since you simply need a port that buys equipment, it is easier to find a suitable port. In V2 this option eliminated by having the game keep track of the last port you stole at and busting you if you try to do it at the same port two times in a row. You can get around this by using two ships at two different ships and using ship transporters to go back and forth between ships. The loop then is sell-steal-export sell-steal-export. This requires only 3 turns per each side of the loop, much less than paired port trading and the profit per loop is much higher. Since the turns per loop is the same regardless of the ship used, it would seem that the best ship for doing this would be the Colonial Transport with 250 holds. However, when you take busts into account and the need to move the ships to replenish holds and go to new ports the higher TPW and the vulnerability of a ship without even a density scanner cast doubt on the wisdom of using Cts and make the mule a better choice. Setting up a bunch of ports in a cluster dead end might seem to make CTs more practical but again, you may find yourself going through these ports rather quickly due to busts. A lot will depend on how the game is set up. In low (350 or less) turn games a CT might be worthwhile but in medium (351 to 749) and high (750 or more) turn games you'll have more busts per day and will need more ports to run loops at getting further and further from SD and class 0 ports. Your clustered dead end will be used up in 3 or 4 days and you'll have to use other ports for the remaining 10 or so days till busts are cleared. Death delay is also a factor, if it is set, it is lot easier to take the loss of a ship if it doesn't mean being out of the game for the rest of the day while your pod and credits are a sitting duck just waiting for someone to blow up your pod and take your credits and take you out of the game for 1 or more additional days, or losing most of your turns the next day even if you do get in before someone blows you up. As for the other ships, why? with fewer than 150 holds not only will you make fewer credits, you will get far fewer experience points for each loop making it more difficult to make up for experience points that are lost due to incidental busts that occur no matter how high your experience is. Use of an automation utility and psychic probes is recommended to speed the loops and get maximum experience and profit. TradeWar Trouble: Got a problem with TW door 7. It suddenly won't recognize my starship as being mine. It's in sector 159 and on the display and is owned by our corp but won't show on the active ship scan and will not recognize that the ship exsists for me to transport to it. It happened right after I towed a Ferengi vessel I had captured. I transported to it to give it a password and when I went to transport back, it said I didn't have an Imperial; starship to transport to anymore. Can you fix? This goof has left us in a vulnerable position.... Think I may be able to field this one for ya. It sounds like the infamous ship records bug. This is a direct result of Gary Martin's complete lack of programing skills. Trade Wars keeps track of your ships by their numbers (ship 1, ship 2, ect.) Often it loses track of which ship is which and gives two seperate ships the same number. When you lost the ship did you happen to notice if you gained another one? One whith the same number but in stead of being and ISS its an escape pod, maybe a Scout Maruader? This happens often when a player who hasn't been on in a while gets deleted. It can also "clone" another trader's ship. As in two traders will have the same number, everything that happens to one ship happens to the other, including sheilds, accessories, and death. This effect is for all practical purposes random and cannot be controled unless the 'days till old players deleted' is set ridiculously high. ***************************TRADE_WARS diehards!!!!********************* How do I get the computer upgrade? Rumor has it that you need to ask the Grimy Trader a particular question and if you know what to ask then you can get a computer upgrade that will improve the combat odds of your ship. Unfortunately such an upgrade does not and never did exist. Want a good place to hide? One player writes that they keep a sector filled with destroyed planet debris and mines. Cloaked there each night no one seems willing to risk going into that sector and there is only occasional damage to oneself. TW help programs recommended by users. Different people want (and need) different things. There is TLXTW scripts for Telix along with TWAssist. TWHelp and TWTerm are also popular. Jim Bianchi is the author of Iago's War Manual, a help file for TW2002 v1.03d. He can be reached at 707-539-1279. He also carries Slice's War Manual, a help file for TW2002 v2.0b5 by Harold Weiss. FEDS! How do you kill them? You can't. They are hard coded into the game. Other things you can't do in Trade Wars: Find an alien derelict; get a computer upgrade; kill the feds; find the secret passage in Vulcan Thunder; wait around for an Atomic Detonator to "accidentally" go off; wait around for a cloaking device to "go bad" in v1.03x (or 2.x if the sysop has the failure set to ZERO) or harm another player with a photon (other than robbing him of his turns for the day if he hasn't taken them). Alternate Universe section of game. It's a one way trip. There the Stardock offers a large new variety of fighters that could each be outfitted with shields and several kinds of weapons or recon systems. Drones are available that will track down an opponent and attack when he logs on. Desert and Volcanic planets produce Spice (an addictive and expensive drug). Dealing Spice can lead to fabulous riches or long jail time and confiscation of property. Of course a randomly appearing wormhole could put you in an unexpected sector. Tradewars ver 2 b6 컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴 When a corporation has a planet and citadel and they acquire gold in excess of 10,000,000,000 the game will not allow them to land and kicks them out with an error code of 102 well, at least that is what We believe to be causing this problem. It only happens when you try to land on the planet. This problem Continued: Next being the kind sysop that I am I tried to tedit that planet and the same thing happens error code 102. This is because the citadel money is tracked with an integer previous to beta 6, and a long integer in betas 6 and 7. It simply can't track a number larger than this. It's not the programmer's fault, it's Pascal's fault. Now, I would ask, how did they get that much money? Are you allowing more than one player in the game at once? This would bring the Citadel Treasury Transfer bug into play, where two people withdraw simultaneously, and both get the money, then deposit it at different times and repeat, doubling the money each time. Make sure your game is single-node only!!! (With default game settings of 250 turns, getting that money legitimately would take a minimum of approximately eleven years!!!) Also, don't try reaching Gary Martin in any echo. He has hired somebody else to work on the game. New bugs can be faxed to 913-842-7818, however, to avoid swamping this number with old bug reports, ask first and see if they're already known. The current version is 2.0 beta 7. Subj : Re: tradewars 컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴 Does any one know the computer interrogation codes for trade wars? I used to know them, and forgot. Id like to get them again. Try typing without the < > I for warp data, R for port data, F to plot a course, Q to quit CIM. �