Ä Area: FidoNet:Tradewars Echo ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ Msg#: 146 Sent Date: 08 Apr 93 18:06:00 From: Joel Downer Read: Yes Replied: No To: Lester Pang Mark: Subj: TW BUGS 1/2 ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ LP>This is the very first time I have ever heard or seen any of this things abo LP>TW having bugs that users can use. Therefore this just means that my area, a LP>my bbs's tw game has none of this. Would anyone please take sometime and lis LP>and explain all of the currently bugs for me please? I would very much LP>appreciate it! I'll quote a message I wrote a couple months ago. * Quoting KS> I overheard this conversation and was interested in the answer. Joel, KS> I'd appreciate any answers thrown my way. Thanks. 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* you 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 1.03, 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. Take care, Joel * OLX 2.1 TD * Kant's Categorical Imperative is too long for a tagline. -!- WM v2.08/92-0488 ! Origin: The Dreaming City, La Mesa, Ca 619-462-8406 (1:202/1104)