� Area: TRADEWARS DI ��������������������������������������������������������� Msg#: 16 Rec'd Date: 03-05-94 20:05 From: Stephen Whitis @1:124/211 Read: Yes Replied: No To: All @1:124/3114*4 Mark: Subj: 1.03D NP INFO #3 3/4/94 ������������������������������������������������������������������������������ The most important advice I could give to an inexperienced player is to read the FIDO-Tradewars echo every day. 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 you get in the game and make it useful. While you are looking, keep an eye out for other player utilities, and TWTIPS12, a collection of tips for players. These suggestions are by no means definitive. But the information here will get you off to a good start. Save a copy to refer back to later. 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 throught he 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 or intentionaly misleading. 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-traffic 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. The density scanner can help you avoid traps, stumbling into Ferrengal (which will be protected with mines and fighters), and find ports. When you are looking for a trade-pair, and you are in a sector with a port, density scanning can tell you which adjacent sectors have ports. That way, you are more likely to move into the sectors with ports (making it possible to find trade pairs) than to move into sectors with no ports. And the density scanner can help you avoid dead-ends, thereby saving you two turns. (Hoard turns!) 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. -!- * MegaMail 2.10 #0:Start a download. Get a beer. Multitasking! -!- FidoPCB v1.5 beta-'g' ! Origin: Lunatic Fringe * Richardson,TX * 214-235-5288 * (1:124/2113)