This page is dedicated to the art of script writing. People write scripts to complete tasks that helper programs cannot do, or to complete a variety of repetitive tasks. I write scripts to do everything from logging me in to robbing ports. What is a script? A script is a sub-program within a larger host program. Most telecommunication programs have scripting abilities, such as Telemate, Telix and ZOC. Most scripting languages differ, but some programs use the standard REXX scripting language that can be transferred to a variety of programs (ZOC and Terminate use REXX, as does the entire OS/2 operating system). The difficulties and capabilities of scripts also vary widely. I find that Telix is too complex, while Telemate is perfect for what is needed in a game like Tradewars. My favorite? I use Telemate ONLY because it is the only scripting language I know, and I have already developed a wide variety of scripts for it (see the script files page). Most players also use Telemate because it has been the program of choice for years. In general, how hard is it to program a script? A script to do such things as SST'ing can take several hours, while others such as colonzing can be as easy as a White House intern. *Now for the advanced stuff......* Trading The most common email I get about scripts is the fact that people can't figure out how to make one trade, the formulas just never work for them. So I will start with trading. First let me explain how I figured this formula out, to help give some insight on future problem solving. When I wanted to write my trading script, the first thing I did was go buy a psychic probe, then I went and found an equipment buying port and sold it without haggling for 5000 credits (meaning I accepted the port's first offer without raising or lowering it's price). The psychic probe reported that the price I sold the equipment was 96.00% of what I could of gotten for it had I haggled. So using this number, I developed a simple formula...... ``` <best price> x .96 = 5000 changed around it is.... <best price> = 5000 / .96 solved it is.... 5208.33 = 5000 / .96 ``` After doing this at a few more ports and getting some more numbers, I realized that generally, a port's first offer was in the 94-97% range, sometimes higher, rarely lower. So, I programmed a script to assume that port's first offer is 94%, then if that didn't work to assume the first offer was 95% and make another offer. Always make offers based on the port's first offering, that is the baseline Here is the sequence of formulas I first tried..... ``` <best price> = <first offer> / .94 <best price> = <first offer> / .95 <best price> = <first offer> / .96 <best price> = <first offer> / .97 ``` Plugging in 5000 as the first offer, here are the result for best price..... ``` 5319 = 5000 / .94 5263 = 5000 / .95 5208 = 5000 / .96 5154 = 5000 / .97 ``` This worked most of the time, but there are some things I have left out for the sake of simplicity thus far. The first is that Telemate doesn't recognize decimals, so the formulas above aren't exactly what I used. Everything had to be moved two decimals over to the left, making a formula look like this... ``` <best price> = 500000 / 94 ``` The results are the same. Another thing I have left out is that a lot of the time, the true 100% offer is rejected. This occurs because if the script finds the 100% at 5203.9, and rounds it to 5204, you are actually over 100%. A rule of thumb is to reduce the 100% offer by one credit, ensuring that you are under. If you think that rare 100% 5 experience points is too much to pass up, then you can make the mathematical adjustments yourself, because I have never bothered. Here are the final formulas I use in trading.... ``` <best price> = (500000 / 94) - 1 <best price> = (500000 / 95) - 1 <best price> = (500000 / 96) - 1 <best price> = (500000 / 97) - 1 ``` Remember that a lot of scripting languages do recognize decimals, so you don't always have to go through the alterations I have to. WAIT, what about buying?? This is a sample formula, figure out how I got it for yourself.... ``` <best price> = <first offer> * .94 ``` Steal/Sell/Transport This is the second most popular. Using the method above, you can easily adapt a script to perform the SST. The script in my archive, however, uses a different approach. It takes the first offers from both ports before attempting to haggle. Once the script knows for sure what range the percentage of best offer is, it can continue to adapt and get the 99%. I recommend programming your script to steal your experience divided by 20. Robbing Barring the bug in robbing in MajorBBS versions, you can have the script keep track of your experience and rob your experiene times 6. It's real important to have a progressive script that adjusts to the addition of new experience points after each rob so there is a less likely the chance of getting busted. Capturing Ships There are two steps (I feel) to capturing a ship. The first is paralyzing your opponent, the second is the actual capture. Now remember I have been solely a MajorBBS player for years, so I don't know if the paralyzing part is something that can be done in the Door/TWGS version. Also, if you are capturing a ship to a player that is offline or belongs to an Alien or Ferrengi, then there is no need to paralyze anything. Step One Have your script launch 20 one-fighter attacks IMMEDIATELY. This will cause lag to everyone on a BBS but you, but not enough lag to be called a cheater. It's not your fault this lag will occur, you're just taking advantage of it. Use this lag time to initiate Step Two. Step Two There are a wide variety of ships with a wide variety of combat odds. The extreme is a Scout Marauder v.s. Colonial Transport, with odds at 2.0 v.s. 0.6, respectively. But since this is a rare match-up, you don't need to make this your default setting. I have my script offer me two options. The default option is ISS v.s. Merchant Frieghter odds. The second option is the extreme I just mentioned. To capture the ship, you must have the script read the other ship's number of fighters. Then calculate the fighters it will take using the ships' odds. Since I use ISS vs Freighter as default, here is the formula ``` <Opponent's Fighters> x 0.8 = <Fighters needed for attack> x 1.5 or <Opponent's Fighters> x 0.8 / 1.5 = <Fighters needed for attack> ``` Once again, I left out some things for simplicity's sake. Remember that some scripts don't recognize decimals. Also, there is a sort of random factor when attacking ships, so using this formula might get you blown up with you attacking a real freighter. To compensate for the random factor in attacking, I generally attack with 90% of the required fighters. I add this formula after the formula above... ``` <Fighters needed for attack> * 0.9 = <New amount that I'm really going to use> ``` Keep relaunching attacks until you've reached capture. Also make your script attack with a minimum of two fighters, so if the enemy gets down to one, you are not trying to attack with one also.

Table of contents: 1) [So your really kind at heart?] 2) [Lets get busy.] 3) [The few, the proud, the Feds.] 4) [The trouble with bubbles.] 5) [The quick and the dead.] 6) [Advanced topics and late game.] 7) [In conclusion.] ## PREFACE This is a bit of a guide, gives some strategy, and explains some ways to successfully play as a goodie goodie in TradeWars 2002. You can disagree with anything here, you might like doing things differently, and hell, ya might say it could be better. I understand this, I am not trying to make uber-goods, I am simply attempting to help the less fortunate grasp how to start, play, and be a successful good. This guide should lead you through the basics, and intermediate action, with a few advanced topics. It figures you have some knowledge of TradeWars, and if you don't, read something like TradeWars for dummy's or play the game a little while. In any case just remember, if you cant cut it on the good side, simply give the evil side a go (and you can read Exodius's EVIL Guidebook to get you started). A bit of work, a bit of practice, and you'll find your "nitch", an attacker, a builder, a moneymaker, etc. As with the evil guide, this is a "passive" startup, and doesn't involve being agressive on day 1. If you want to do something like this, then I'll leave it up to you to come up with your own strategies for attacking. ## So your really kind at heart? Join the Federation! Join the collective cause! Fight evil ferringi and galactic piracy! Ask your local federation captain for more information on how to join the ranks. Benefits of joining include, 1) You get to fly an ISS (typically the best ship by FAR) 2) You get exclusive rights to transwarp directly to fedspace 3) You get to fight the good fight, aiding the federation in the fight for the galaxy 4) You get to build personal planetary systems, including highly powerful quasars and credit making organics farms 5) You get to be blue instead of red 6) You get some federation protection while your young 7) You get a really sharp looking uniform 8) You get the use of the powerful photon torpedo with the purchase of an ISS 9) You get to trade products for profit 10) The ISS is a real chick magnet ## Lets get busy Well, you've started out, soon you'll be on your way to ruling your own personal galactic empire. But first, lets get you out of that merchant cruiser and into a more profitable early game trading ship, the merchant freighter. Of course, check your game's ship specifications first, but usually a merchant freighter will be around 7% more efficent at flat out trading compared to the cruiser. As an added bonus, the freighter uses only 2 turns per warp in stock games, while the cruiser uses 3. This means you spend less turns actually moving from port pair to port pair. And if that isn't good enough, through trading your cruiser for a freighter first thing, you will gain a few holds, and have enough cash left over from the trade to buy some fighters or shields, and a density scanner (which is VERY importaint). Time to start trading, make yourself some cash, and get that merchant freighter decked out with holds, and a holoscanner, as well as some more defensive fighters or shields. Grab a few ether probes too, fire them to find new pair ports easier. You can decide yourself on haggling or not. It is suggested you don't haggle, so as to stay under 1000 experience (and thus stay fedspace protected) for as long as possible. If you do haggle you'll make a bit more profit, but will have to use a exp-loss technique to stay fedsafe. For instance allowing a evil friend to pod you a couple times. Or by guessing the password to the underground wrong several times (U in stardock, it's a hidden area). Just remember, if you are using an exp-loss technique, deposit your cash first, or let a corp mate hold it (I believe in the underground if you guess wrong twice you get mugged and credits taken, 3 times you lose half your exp, 4 times you get murdered). ## The few, the proud, the Feds Well, by now you've traded down most or all of your turns and should have a sizeable sum of cash, in a loaded merchant freighter. It's time for you to prepare for a federal comission. To do so, your going to need 500 good alignment. Theres several ways to go about getting this, but heres the fairly cost effective. 1) Cross pod with an evil. This would be basically starting with both of you around 1000 experience, you kill him once, he kills you once, you kill him a second time, he kills you a second time. This will make you decent good if he's decently evil, and only costs a few fighters and a couple merchant freighters (all escape pod equipped ships only contain 2, so you'll need 2 new freighters to safely do it, remember, scouts dont have pods). Also, remember you can only safely get podded twice in one day, third time is the "big sleep". The downside to this is, it gets you over 1000 experience. Course you can always lower your exp using exp lowering techniques, and that makes this a good way of doing things. Also, it'll leave you with most or all of the cash you made trading, for you to spend on an iss, holds, t-warp, etc. 2) Post rewards on evils. You can do this in the police station, 1 good alignment per 1,000 credits posted. Thus it'll take 500,000 credits to make enough alignment to get comissioned. This is a lot more costly then crosspodding, but typically you cant crosspod, and this will not effect your experience. Alone this will get you an iss on day 1 or day 2, depending on your success at trading and your choice of alignment gain. However, you should be in a corp, and in that case you can pool your collective cash to buy at least 1 ISS on day one, complete with full holds, a twarp drive, and a compliment of fighters, or alternatively, low fighters, saving the cash and starting a "bubble". At this point you could try blockaiding stardock through the use of scripts, photon rain, etc, but I am explaining a passive startup, you can explore this option on your own. Now that you have an ISS with full holds and a twarp drive (this is the main goal to attain), it's time to move on, to planetary building, and bubble development. ## The trouble with bubbles For those who don't know, a "bubble" is, it's several sectors connected together, with only 1 exit. For example, 3 sectors in a line, the one in back has 1 exit, to the second sector, the second sector only has 2 exits, to the very back, and to the front door. The front door has 2 exits, one to the middle room, and one, back out into space (IE, a sector with alot of exits etc). Some bubbles are bigger then others, and typically they aren't in a straight line, instead branching off a bit behind the "front door" sector. You can find bubbles like this by luck (while you were trading) or through the use of a helper (typically using zero turn mapping, and a bubblefinder script). One thing to remember though, try not to pick the biggest bubble on your helper list. These will undoubtedly be probed alot by everyone who's looking through bubbles. Just pick one a bit further down the list and your a "bit" safer. Maybe in the 4-6 or 7 room bubble range. Inside a bubble like this, you place planets. Good planets to typically place, in stock games that is, would be L class, H class, and O class. Some games have edited planets, you might want to ask about them first. In any case, the L classes will be your first to hit level 3 (AKA quasar level) and become your early defence. The H classes will take longer to build, but will eventually be your BADASS defence planets. While the O class planets will become your cash-cow's. They make 1 organics for every 2 colonists on the planet working organics. This means with a decent amount of colonists, these will produce tens of thousands of organics every day, making you millions of credits worth of profit. Typically you want 1 O class in every bubble sector (at least 1). And if possible, you want as many organics buying ports in there as possible (build them in bubble sectors that are empty). Now, to start out your planets, start blowing em in a bubble sector, and IF POSSIBLE, do it in a bubble sector with a SBX port SBS being prefered. If you dont like what they give you, detonate it and make another (this will make some navhaz, but making another planet will clean that up). Typically you can only place 5 planets in a sector without "overloading" it (overloading a sector will cause 2 planets to collide at extern). Again, try to get an L class, H class, and O class to start out with. Ok, so you've got your planets up now, time to get some colonists in here. But first, your going to need the all importaint t-warp resource, FUEL! To start out we'll want to haul some fuel onto the planet we plan on colonizing. Later on this will be easier, with the L or H class making the fuel at a decent rate of speed. So, port, buy a full load of fuel, dump on planet, rinse, repeat. Use a macro or something to do this :) so you can quickly drain the few thousand fuel off the port. Ok, now the port is drained and your planet has about 2k fuel on it (give or take depending on how much was in the port). I suggest strongly that you start by colonizing the H class planet. It will make fuel very very fast, thus helping you colonize more and easier in the first couple days. Now, go into your ship computer and plot the course between your planet, and sector 1. Then, plot the course from sector 1, to your sector. Add these 2 distances together (for instance, 9 hops to sector 1, 9 hops back, making 18 total hops). It takes 3 holds of fuel for every hop you travel with the transwarp drive. This means you need to take total distance * 3. So, in our example it would be 18*3=54. So, you will need 54 fuel to make a round trip flight. Grab 54 fuel, fly to sector 1 with the twarp, land, grab colonists off terra, fly back to your bubble by t-warp, dump colonists, grab 54 fuel, repeat. This will go much faster with a script or macro, and also helps if you turn off ansi cinematics. Quickly you'll have drained your planet of fuel and stuck quite a few colonists on it. If you are working with a corp, SHARE the ISS you have with the others, help them get comissions to aid in colonist hauling, and in loading fuel etc. Now, start the planet building a citadel. For an H class I believe this takes about 1800 colonist units, and a good chunk of equipment, fuel, and organics. Try to get it started, then move enough colonists to the L class, as well as enough fuel/equipment/organics to get it started too. Then put all the colonists back on the H class. They don't have to stay on a planet to finish a citadel, and they'll make more fuel on the H class for more colonizing. You dont really have to start a citadel on the O class if you dont want to right away, it's a bit helpful to have L4 O classes later on, but for now it's no biggie. Congratulations, your well on your way to becoming a galactic powerhouse. ## The quick and the dead Well, now your bubble is started off, and of course, your going to want to keep it alive. You invest alot of time in populating it, alot of cash in upgrading it, and have probably started to upgrade organics buying ports, getting them ready to start selling loads of organics any day now. In any case, heres a few thoughts on early defence. Early on, your bubble is very vournerable. Pretty much everything can be photon'ed and disabled, making any potential early quasars rather ineffectual. Sector fighters will also be rendered useless. And you can't defend level 0-1 planets with figs (they have to be level 2 before fighters on the planet will defend, below level 2, and the enemy can simply land and take the fighters for himself). Your best bets for survival through this crucial stage are as follows: 1) HUNT FOR EVILS! Use grimy trader, track them down, kill them ruthlessly. Left alone evils will very very quickly make the cash to search the universe, find your sector, and to overtake it in it's infancy. Or alternatively they will make their cash, hand it over to their mega-corp teammates (goods) and let THEM find and take out your sector. In any case, evils will have the resources available to take down basically any young sector, kill them off as much as possible, and you in turn protect yourself. 2) CHANGE YOUR SHIP NAME REGULARLY! Since you will be porting in ports inside your bubble occasionally with your iss, change your ship name every chance you get. Otherwise, people will simply use the grimy trader on you and be given an exact location. On the same note, if you are going to sleep overnight in a ship OTHER then the iss (IE, to let others use the ISS) make sure NOT to port in any ports, in the ship you sleep in. So if you get a tholian to sleep in or something, simply bring it in, and never port it, then your safe from grimy for as long as your inside it. 3) Keep an eye out for other goodie bases. Just as your bubble is vournerable, so is theirs. And if you have an evil working for you, it is even easier to overtake. 4) You can try out tholian sentinels. They do work in current versions of TW. Long as you are inside one, in a sector with corporate planets, it'll take a decent amount of power to kill. This wont save you from well funded iss users, but it should be enough to keep some people away if they do find your area. 5) Always check for limpits before flying your iss home. It only takes a few seconds to make a quick t-warp stop at SD before t-warping home, it might save your life. I can't tell you how many people I've seen moronically drag limpits home. Even worse, they all deny they did it. Don't let this happen to you, port at SD regularly. ## Advanced topics and late game Well, now your making cash, organics farming many oceanic planets, have fighters coming out your ears, and a very good home sector defence. So, what do you do? Kill everyone of course. This is the point in time when you go out and kill everyone in your power. Take out enemy bases, kill those evils, try to get your alignment up (through killing of evils) enough to kill goods without problems. Play your cards right and you (and your corp) will be competetive, or even winning. In any case, you should be fairly ruthless at this point, kill first, answer the stupid whiners later. Another little topic would be further advanced bubble defences. Usually you move your larger bruiser planets (and any others you take) to your front sector or two. Obviously you can only have 5 to a room, but a couple L5 H classes and a few L class's (which would be level 5-6 at this time) makes for a fairly killer front end. Just remember to shield them well, to keep them protected from photons. Also, turn the first planet in the room (the lowest planet number in the room) to a LOW sector cannon. Depening on the amount of fuel present on the planet, 1-7% should be acceptable. Basically your trying to make the first planet that fires, fire a small shot of 1k damage through 2k damage, to kill small ships. Set the second cannon for around a 4k-10k shot, and the rest as you like (though usually your trying to do enough damage to pod a decked ISS). This will prevent "mothing" a technique used to drain enemy planets of fuel to make them easier to kill. People do this by flying small "cheap" ships into the room, to take quasar hits. If you set all your planets real high on the sector, people are simply going to fly in and blow hundreds of thousands of your fuel for the cost of a few merchant freighters. And remember, set atmosphere shots high enough to blast anything that attempts to land. Considering the sector shots damage, this should only have to be 20k damage through 40k damage (depends on ship edits, plus now and then people will try hitting you with a decked intradictor, 100k figs). Also, don't turn on military reaction on the planet. This will cause wasteful use of fighters on the planet offensively, which will only get 1.0 offensive odds. Compared to letting them stay on the planet and defend at 2.0 odds, making it twice as effective to let them defend. Besides, if your quasars are set right on those level 5+'s you shouldn't have to worry about much of a ship surviving the blasts. One more thing to mention about planets, though known to most people, is planets have maximums on their colonists production rates. For instance, on unedited L class planets, you can put 20k colonists on fuel ore production "maximum". Any higher and it actually begins to LOSE fuel ore production capacity. Just play around with the pop numbers and find the max's on your particular game, to maximize effectiveness of your production. ## In conclusion Anyway, that should give any goodie goodie a fine start on the road to victory. Sure, some things were deliberately left out, and I stayed vague on agressive early game strategies. But these things are beyond the scope of this guidebook. This will get you going, and with any luck will help you become very successful. If you really want to learn how to write agressive scripts like auto photon to tripped fighter, or the old attack tricks, it will take some practice, a knack for fighting, and perhaps a mentor willing to share. As far as more advanced lategame strategy, this too is a bit beyond what I'm trying to get across here. But if you survive that long, you shouldn't have any trouble figuring out what to do. Exodius

Table of contents: 1) [So you want to be an evil?] 2) [In the beginning.] 3) [Movin on up.] 4) [The joys of stealing.] 5) [Stayin Alive, Stayin Alive.] 6) [Cruel and Unusual Punishment.] ## PREFACE This is a bit of a guide, gives some strategy, and explains some ways to successfully play as an evil in Tradewars 2002. You might disagree, you might have better ideas, hell, you might have a better startup. But then again, so do I ;p. I just decided I'd throw up a basic startup to help out the people who are sick of playing a goodie, or newer players who can't seem to get an evil character running. It figures you have some knowledge of tradewars, and if you don't, read something like tradewars for dummy's or play the game a little while. I'm also not including exact instructions on blocking SD and creating scripts. These are things you can find elsewhere, and can come up with yourself if thats what floats yer boat. In any case good luck with you, and if you can't handle the pressures of being evil, you can simply read my GOOD guidebook, which I'll be throwing together soon. ## So you want to be an evil? Hey, we all know how easy it is to be a little pansy goodie goodie. Hiding in fedspace under 1000 exp, being nice, defending things, colonizing (vomit). I've gotta say I'm glad to hear you want turn to the dark side, just think of all the perks. 1) You get to jettison colonists all you want! 2) You get to fly typically insuperior ships! 3) You get hunted by every goodie, evil guy, and grandmother! 4) You get to refurbish your holds non-stop and feel the joys of busting! 5) You get to blow alot of planets up! 6) You get to enjoy never being completely safe, ever! 7) You get to be red instead of that wimpy looking blue color! 8) You get to sit around instead of colonizing and upgrading planets! 9) You get to steal stuff! 10) Oh yeah, you make lots of credits too! Still here? Well, I'm glad to see your not easily scared off, the prospects of being an evil are quite, grim, but the benefits can outweigh that. I must say either your quite brave or very stupid, but I'll help you out anyway for sticking around. ## In the beginning Lets face it, usually the ship you start in deserves to be scrap metal. Always check the specs, but in a stock game it'll have a 3 turn per warp engine, and only 75 holds max. Even worse, in most games you start out with 300 credits. I mean c'mon, you couldn't buy toothpaste with 300 credits. Well, typically there's a simple solution, the Merchant Freighter. At 2 turns per warp with 65 holds max, this ship is a bit more efficient then the cruiser at trading. Plus, at 2 turns per warp it is much less costly moving around actually finding trading ports. If your in early enough, hell with it, trade that piece of crap cruiser in first thing, get yourself a freighter with the cash from the trade. Now you'll have gained a few holds, and have enough cash for a few fighters or shields, and a density scanner (ahem, IMPORTANT, always get a density scanner early). This is all banking on you being able to successfully get to the stardock. Easier said then done, but with advanced stardock blocking techniques out there today, most TW sysops are placing the dock next to fedspace to make things easier. There are still potential problems with this, but with any luck you'll be in a merchant freighter and trading away in no time. Remember, this ship is just to get you started. Deck her out with holds, fire a few e-probes to find good pair port areas, and make some cash/exp (you have to be haggling here, exp will soon turn into big money, use a script or helper if possible). Also, while trading lay down fighters here and there when you find XXB ports fairly clustered in an area, and put 1 down at every pair port you trade down. Another thing to know is this is a Passive Startup. It will get you decent cash and exp, but it's not made to be aggressive on day 1. I consider aggressive startup's (stardock blocking, mass killing, hunting, spending early cash on figs) as more advanced tatics that you should dig into yourself. ## Movin on up. Well, now you have probably played down most or all of day 1, have some decent cash, and somewhere around 1k exp (give or take, depends on turns, port density, and the amount of traders out there). Time to go evil, jettison a load of colonists and if your not -100 yet go post a reward or two in the underground until you are. This is a critical point. You can do a few different things here. 1) Buy a decent fighting ship, load it up with some figs, and do a little killing. Good ships for this type of play on day 1-2 are typically things like a havoc gunstar, a starmaster, a constellation (check ship specs for a decent attack odds ship with 3 turns per warp or so, transwarp drive is a plus). Alternatively you could buy a missile frigate and try photon rain from SD in a form of SD block strategy. 2) Buy a t-warp capable ship, and get a couple SST ships to tow around. Start SST'ing (steal sell transport for those who don't know). Obviously this is alot better if you can get your hands on a corporate flagship. In any case check your settings, in some games there are decent t-warp ships available to the non-ceo evil for you to use. If possible get a ship with over 80 holds and a t-warp, if it's a stock game and your not a ceo, settle with a havoc. If you picked fighting, well, I think you can handle that on your own. However, if you decided to sst at this point then lets move on :) ## The joys of stealing Well, now you have a tow-ship (with t-warp type 2 installed, and a load of holds for fuel). Hopefully your carrying 2k+ exp, and have a couple decent SST ships. Typically they are either mules (150 holds max) or colonial transports (typically called colts, which have 250 holds max). It's time to start sst'ing. First off, find a decent area with XXB ports. If you laid down figs while trading earlier, this should be no problem at all. T-warp tow in your sst ships into 2 separate XXB port sectors. Now, upgrade the ports a little bit. 1 upgrade of equipment units = 10 equipment on dock in the port. Thus, if you are stealing around 100 holds of equipment, upgrade the port 11 or 12 (this way, theres a bit extra in the port so you can keep stealing without having to worry about your equipment amount on dock going down below 100). Now you decide how much your going to SST. This is fairly easy to calculate, but might take a few tries before you can figure out the best setting for the particular game. Typical calculations are holds*20=exp required, up to holds*30=exp required. Skimp too much and you'll get busted alot, go too high and you'll be making alot less then you potentially can. Now, start the cycle, port, steal X holds of equipment (X being however much you can according to your exp) port, sell equipment, haggle for exp. Transport to other ship, port, steal equipment, port, sell equipment, transport. Never steal from the same port twice in a row or you will be busted. And once you've busted at a port, try not to port or steal there again for a good while. Just move the busted ship to another XXB port, upgrade the port, and start again. Now your making cash, busting occasionally, and sst'ing. Sounds like the perfect time to go over what you need to do to stay a successful evil. First off, PLANET BUST. Spend most of your early cash making planets, and blowing em up. This will make you 75 exp for every 35k or so and costs very very few turns. You have to do this alot, but this will help you get your exp up higher and higher, with the intent to get high enough to successfully steal 250 holds regularly. A second little trick is refurbing with merchant freighters. Basically, you buy a merchant freighter, deck it with holds, and kill it with the colt you busted in. This will fill your holds back up a bit. This is usually best when your dealing with 250 holds, as it is considerably cheaper to spend 45k or so on a decked merchant freighter to fill up the holds you lose when you bust at 250 then to drag the colt back and manually buy them (those 20 some odd holds are VERY expensive). In other words, early on it might be cheaper to fill your colts manually, but once you get up in the 200 hold range, it's best to get your holds off salvage. Just remember, attack the merchant freighter with 1 fighter, you'll blow it up for 20 some holds. Later on you can use advanced moneymaking techniques. These usually require a lot of experience, and include: Rob transport Rob (a 4 turn cycle used when ports don't have enough credits to mega-rob, this can make a "lot" of cash using exp*3=credits through exp*10=credits depending on the game, your exp, and how hard the ratio is set). Steal Dump Transport (a 4 turn cycle where you load a port with equipment, steal, dump it on the planet, transport, steal, dump, transport, it requires 2 planets and some startup cash but is considerably more profitable then sst'ing, when done ya simply sell back the equipment from the planet to the port using a planetary trade). Buy Dump, MEGAROB (This is where you load a port up to sell alot of equipment, buy it all down using a overprice buy script, IE buying for about 30-35% more then their asking for, filling the port with over 3.4 million credits, then robbing all your cash back with 1 megarob, course then you move your planet to an upgraded equipment buying port and sell it all back, takes VERY few turns and turns HUGE profit with extremely little chance of busting). ## Stayin Alive, Stayin Alive Now your doing well, stealing up a storm, probably have 5k+ exp and are stealing a good amount of holds (up to 250 depending on how hard busts are in your particular game). Your making cash out the ass, and there's only one problem. Just about everyone wants you dead. Their not stupid :) your like an ATM, kill you and they can steal your cash, sell your colts, and in general make a whole lot of credits. Even better, your forced to use a big huge piece of crap ship for sst'ing in. A colt wont last 2 seconds vs just about anything. As if that isn't bad enough, your typically sitting at the same set of ports for an extended period of time to make cash. This makes you EXTREMELY vulnerable to the grimy trader :(. Your best bet at staying alive early on, is to lay fighters literally everywhere you go. All over the place, 1 fighter here, 1 fighter there. Try to make sure that if anyone tries to come at you, you'll have plenty of advance warning. At the first sign of a fig hit, jump back into your bigger "fighting ship/tow ship" and either run like hell, or go kick some ass. If you've played your cards right you should have a good amount of fighters, and a decent amount of exp. This should put you at least competetive in a fight with pretty much anyone. Of course however corps can put up a good amount of figs for a "designated fighter". So in any case if you see someone decent coming, you might want to get the hell out of there. And speaking of corps, you should definitely be in one. Either get a few evils together for a corp, or try to get some evils/goods (IE a split or "mega corp"). If you do have goodies as part of your split corp, feed them well. They will typically (unless the game is heavily edited) have FAR superior ships, and the capability to build. In other words, you supply them the cash, and they'll help kill off the competition, while building up some nice planets. Later on they can give you a few level 4+ planets, and you can use these to start up advanced cash making, like loading ports with cash to megarob, and steal dump transport (although you can do steal dump transport with planets of any level really, it just takes some setup to turn a profit). ## Cruel and Unusual Punishment Well, now you know how to be an evil, you've got the ships, got the money, got the fighters. Thats all fine and dandy, but hey, have you been killing the competition? Lets face it, the easiest targets for you to kill, and undoubtedly the most profitable for the cost of locating and killing, are other evils. Don't just sit around and let them make cash to fuel badass goodies of their split corp, be agressive, put those fighters to use. Head over the the grimy, have him start tracing em, get a recent hit (as in, he ported somewhere TODAY) and go slaughter their ass. Try not to trip fighters as you head in, you might have to walk a long route to find a quiet way in. Kick some ass, take some names. If you can manage to nail his pod as well, then look around a bit. Undoubtedly his tow-fight ship will be nearby (typically a corporate flag), and unmanned the fighters defending it will die VERY easily. So hell with it, kill that ship :) it'll cost you alot less to kill it then it'll cost him to replace. Also be constantly on the lookout for early goodie bases, you may be able to take them over yourself early, or just supply a goodie in your split-group and have him do it. With a good iss using friend, you should be able to easily take out most any early game base, even easier if you can get a few evils working with you. I do hope you have found this, instructional. Of course there are a few things I have, ahem, left out. But these things are beyond the scope of this lesson in evilness. Hopefully you have found it, educational. Exodius

I'm off for seven days on Vacation. If anything breaks, It'll be fixed when I get back.

I'm made an article covering the events that happened over at Silver Wings over this past holiday weekend. [Read it.](https://web.archive.org/web/20000000000000*/https://www.tradewars.org/articles/silverwings.shtml) Christmas really does bring out the best in people doesn't it? If your wondering why it wasn't posted yesterday like I promised, that's due to [my adventures of trying to find a TV](https://web.archive.org/web/20000000000000*/https://www.worthlessbastard.com/newlayout.asp?page=rants). Go ahead, laugh at my pain.

Well It looks like The players who participated in December's TW League game got a great Christmas Gift: They no longer have a place to play! I'm still scrounging through the egroups finding what I need, but it looks like the case of a sysop on a power trip. Full report tommorrow.

January 1 is coming up real quick. Here's the deal. If the new site design isn't completely finished by the first of the new year TRADEWARS.WS will temporarily shut down until it is complete. There will only be a splash page up until I have everything ready to launch. Then I will make an announcement in the the various TW eGroups, via ICQ/AIM, and an e-mail sent out to those of you on my various TW lists when it launches. I'm not going to launch it half-done...the sections that I have featured will be complete up to that point and then I'll add more as I'm able. I'm hoping to get a new start with the new design and start updating on a daily basis once again.

Well some people have been doing a little bit of work with their TW sites recently despite the upcoming holidays. [Bad Girl's page](https://web.archive.org/web/20000000000000*/https://hometown.aol.com/twarsbadgirl/) is starting to roll in full force now. Also, Cruncher has redesigned the look of her [main page](https://web.archive.org/web/20000000000000*/https://tradewars.fament.com/cruncher/tradewar.htm). Kitty Moon changed the look and layout of her site back near the beginning of the month. It looks smashing as well. I also want to thank Tweety for adding me to the Boo! Inc. [web site](/files/Site%20Caps/BooInc/news.html). Good work folks!

A lot of players have been added to Guardian's "[Player Spotlight](https://web.archive.org/web/20000000000000*/https://tradewars.fament.com/guardian/player.htm)" page on [Dragons Elite](https://web.archive.org/web/20000000000000*/https://tradewars.fament.com/guardian/). Go over and check 'em out. While you're there you can add yourself to the list!On a personal note: I want to thank everyone that mentioned me in their Player Spotlight entry. I never expected to make such an impact on people and I'm completely flattered that you folks mentioned me :o) I've played with some of the coolest, nicest, knowledgeable, and most generous people I could have asked for.

Two new teams have entered the USO '01 since my last update. "Rogue Mercenaries" consists of Earth - CEO, Adder, Nefidar, Peanut, Dunbar Felton, and Doctor Who. The second team is one of my original corporations since I've begun Internet TW play, "Nav Haz Unlimited" consisting of Dark One - CEO, Fuseblown, Darth Vader, Illusion, Deathwing, and one TBA. Check out the yellow text at the top of the page for a link to the official USO '01 page and information.