[<img src="/files/Site%20Caps/BooInc/assets/BooIncLogo_large.png">](/files/Site%20Caps/BooInc/news.html) After more than a decade in the digital void, the iconic Boo! Inc. website has risen from the archives and is back online. For those who lived through the golden age of Trade Wars 2002, this name needs introduction. For everyone else, let me tell you about one of the most hardcore gaming corporations that ever haunted the virtual sectors. Space Ghost and his team—including members like Kavanagh, Medusa, Adomma, and others—didn't just play the game. They shaped the community: * **Hosted Major Tournaments:** The famous Haunted Halloween Tournament (HHT) became a beloved annual tradition * **Ran a TWGS Server:** Providing countless hours of competition with games like "Massive," "Big Chess," and custom edits * **Created Content:** Space Ghost's Trade Wars-themed poems from 1999-2000 are preserved here, including classics like "Twas The Night Before Christmas" (TW edition) and "The Night Before Rebang" * **Built Community:** Through victories, defeats, and plenty of forum flames (which they actively encouraged), they made Trade Wars more than just a game This website is a time capsule. The original files were recovered from the Wayback Machine and lovingly converted to HTML5/CSS3 by Cruncher in December 2013. I've further added more consistent formatting, fixed some links, and restored some images from my own archives. I've also added a touch to the memorial page. This represents a snapshot of early 2000s online gaming culture—complete with starfield backgrounds, flame wars, BBS culture, and genuine passion for a text-based space trading game. [Boo!](/files/Site%20Caps/BooInc/news.html)

A user named [Amiskell](https://classictw.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=35158&p=248898#p248898) posted [instructions](https://web.archive.org/web/20170000000000*/https://gist.github.com/andrewmiskell/e347585c059fbcddbb98cd324377d8c5) on how to get TWGS running in one of the most difficult ways possible. But hey, it's easy if you know what you're doing! Reminds me of the days I was running TWGS under WINE on Linux before Linux was semi-easy to use. All sitting behind my custom BBS software, eleqtriqBBS!

... back in August! I forgot all about it. Not many websites out there can lay claim to being online for 20 years, but this site can. No one really comes here anymore, since I don't post (and there are no players). This site is barely getting 30-50 visitors a day. I expect over the next few years, people will notice The Stardock has had an anniversary. Unfortunately, I haven't posted much in the decade since. I closed my TWGS three years before the 10 year anniversary, and shortly after it I updated the website to what you see today. I've been wanting to update the look of it for about five years, but I can never find a theme I like. Eleq

We had a Great Time in Kansas City!!! ok from left to right ...Auntie B in front of her Xanos, Beside her is Drexler aka Pixie..In front beside Xanos is Macahan(from SWATH&amp;Fament) and Behind Macahan is the Infamous TR Edwards,,Next to Macahan is Myself Space Ghost..And on my arm is Willow The bald guy behind me is T0yman and the guy beside T0yman is Merlin (willows husband)..Taking the Picture is Supermom from Fament (macahans wife) <img src="https://www.imagechicken.com/uploads/1222734947056020500.jpg" alt="TWCON 08 Group Picture" /> Thanks for all who came out!!! Can't wait to do it again sometime!!!!!

Google launched a new service called "Google Insights". Let you track trends over time. Well, things aren't looking good for TradeWars. <img src="https://www.thestardock.com/imgs/twinterest.png" /> To view the full chart, [CLICK HERE.](https://web.archive.org/web/20080000000000*/https://www.google.com/insights/search/#cat=&amp;q=tradewars%2Ctrade%20wars%202002%2Ctradewars%202002&amp;geo=&amp;date=&amp;clp=&amp;cmpt=q)

I met up with Mana last night in San Francisco. We were shocked to realize how long it has been since we last met up in the Bay. My youngest son was a fertilized egg when we met up last (and he's five now!). <img src="https://farm3.static.flickr.com/2027/2275928300_303133bcf7.jpg?v=0" alt="" />We ate some expensive food, talked some shop, a little bit of Trade Wars (neither of us play, not much to talk about there!), and had a good time. We've decided to declare our get together The TradeWars Convention 2008. We're sorry you all missed out.

<img src="/static/img/baretop.jpg" alt="baretop.jpg"> I decided I don't have a lot of time these days to be writing custom apps for these types of things, and today's software is so nice, I should just install something already made. Wordpress fit the bill and here it is. This will replace the forums and the previous site, and comments can be made to posts here directly. As a result of this change, and the fact that I'm admining classictw's forums, Tradewarsforums.com will go away. All accounts are gone and if you want to comment on this site, just make a new account here. The login is at the bottom of the right side links. I'll probably make it more obvious later. The biggest result of my changes is that I've painstakingly gone through the old news and entered them all into individual posts, as opposed to the previous method where I just sorted them by month/year and threw them into the library. Further, I've expanded the history of entered posts to include TW Gazette (Timberwolf) and Kitten's Playground (Kitty Moon/Icehawk), in addition to the Home Sector/Tradewars.ws (Fuseblown) and Tradewars.or (Mana Knight/Bad Girl) already present. I've also added a few pages from Jackal's old site, which include results of the 3rd Annual TW Awards. If you have some old archived news, send them my way. Because I had to enter these posts under the names of the users who made them, those accounts have already been created. If you try to register and your name is taken, contact me and I'll send you your password. Files - There are no files at this time. I'm still trying to decide what I want to do with them. TWX Archives - I'd like to offload the TWX message archives to someone currently handling or dealing with TWX. If you are that person, contact me and I'll email you a zip of the messages. Hope you enjoy the new site and design. One thing that TradeWars has been sorely lacking is good site design. I think this new site is beautiful, hopefully you do, too. Thanks EleqTrizi'T

[New MP3's!](/files/Audio) Interview with Gypsy, a rant about me, and a shortened Space Ghost interview. Also added time marks to some interesting stuff in the files, however, there's a lot I didn't mark that's interesting, too.

Over the many years that I have played Trade Wars, I have used tactics that have made other players absolutely furious. I've had them call me cheater, liar, bug user, and even a downright asshole. But oh well huh? Now in my own enemy's defense, I can see how some of these low-blow tactics of mine can cause anyone but a total expert to go hysterical. They don't know how I do it, so natural logic would suggest foul play. But it isn't..... here are the tricks that I have used, and have held in such secret that only now have I decided to share them..... **The Tricks** *Corbomite, Death at a Discount* - One of the greatest things about Trade Wars is corbomite. If you are known to carry it, other players will always think twice about poppin' you. The disadvantage of corbomite would be if you got your ship captured with lots of corbo on it, because that is going to translate into bonus wealth for the player who sells your ship. But there is a way to use corbomite effectively without having too much risk of being captured and still getting all the benefit of blowing your enemy to hell with little money. <img src="/static/img/corbo1.gif" alt="corbo1.gif (2994 bytes)"> Ok, so here you found an easy target...it's that damn evil guy who has eluded you for weeks! Adrenaline is flowing, your heart is pumping like mad!!! <img src="/static/img/corbo2.gif" alt="corbo2.gif (2855 bytes)"> I GOT HIM!!!!DAMN!!! !@#$#$!!! <img src="/static/img/corbo3.gif" alt="corbo3.gif (7941 bytes)"> Here we have AlcaPhunK tricking the ISS-armed trader into firing on him. There are several things that the evil player did before provoking an attack. First, the Colonial Transport was armed with an odd number of fighters and shields. There is a reason for this. This makes it hard for capture-savvy players to quickly calculate what it takes to capture the ship in one to two shots. Second, the evil player is flying around in a ship that is too big for his experience. This is to make the good guy think he is somewhat ignorant of the game and would be an easy target. It takes 1.5 million credits to buy 1500 corbomite, which in turn does 30,000 battle points of damage to any ship. 1.5 million would buy only 7500 fighters, and 7500 would never outgun 23K+, so this was a good buy. ADVANCED - A few things to note. First is that if the good guy were to try and capture your ship, the way to make capturing backfire is to power-up your own weapons and let them rip. Macros would be best, rapidly pound on a macro that would launch 20 at a time, for example. If the good guy sets to capture a ship armed with 156 when he starts to attack, but the ships ends up with only 20 by the time he finally launches...guess what? BOOM! Second, if possible, designate a corp member to your corp's "pod clean-up crew" and have him waiting nearby. After the good guy is turned to total nav haz, lock on a twarp tow and get the hell out. <img src="/static/img/namegameblue.gif" alt="namegameblue.gif (852 bytes)"> *The Name Game* - One of the easiest tricks to pull off is duplicating names of planets, ports, even players (more on this later). If you have an armada of planets that are named the same, it wreaks havoc on an opposing enemy's strategy. <img src="/static/img/namegame.gif" alt="namegame.gif (3130 bytes)"> So you scan and this is what you see..easy enough, right? Two Mountainous planets, so their quasar blasts would sure to be run down and out soon enough.... Wrong. What if you wore the planets down until they started blasting for 30 damage points? Then what if you warped in and got HAMMERED anyways?! Ouch! This doesn't make sense, how can it blast like this? You've been working on it for 20 minutes, it's just not possible!! <img src="/static/img/namegame2.gif" alt="namegame2.gif (5453 bytes)"> Well it makes perfect sense. Because your opponent just warped in two EXACT planets with the same name and level right under your nose, and warped the two you were working with out! There is absolutely no way for you to tell when something like this has happened. I have used this trick on numerous occassions, always effectively. <img src="/static/img/namegameblue.gif" alt="namegameblue.gif (852 bytes)"> *The Name Game, players* - This speaks for itself...how confusing would this be? Could you quickly tell which gamer belongs to which handle? <img src="/static/img/newgameplayer.gif" alt="newgameplayer.gif (1531 bytes)"> Imagine the possibilities....use this with corbo, attacking.... the confusion is key. <img src="/static/img/namegameblue.gif" alt="namegameblue.gif (852 bytes)"> *The Quick-warpin' Colonial* - Well, not exactly.... It's a little realized fact that the game favors the attacker. When you launch waves of fighters at someone, your ship will be ready to fire again BEFORE your victim fully receives all the computer messages. Try it out with a corpmate. Have them quit the corp for a moment, and launch 100 waves of single fighter attacks. Then page him, go to the bathroom, wash your hands and come back. You'll notice no response. Why? Because while your end of the game is ready to resume, his end is still dealing with the attack. <img src="/static/img/fastattack.gif" alt="fastattack.gif (6345 bytes)"> This is me, pecking at Hosem. This is Hosem, getting pecked. <img src="/static/img/fastattack2.gif" alt="fastattack2.gif (4041 bytes)"> Now let's put this in a situation...let's say you ARE in a Colonial Transport and Hosem comes along looking for fresh prey. Obviously the CT can't outrun, or outgun much of anything. So what do you do? Hit Hosem fast and furious with 1 fighter for as many times as you can, and run! By the time the game lets Hosem move again, you can be 20 sectors away and long gone. **NOTE** - on some BBS's that aren't poweful enough, this quick-attack-then-run feature could cause the WHOLE BBS to lag except you, even people not in the game will experience huge lag. I would say go ahead and try it until a sysop scolds you. ADVANCED - Turn the tables...if you find a player that is known for corbo and you want to capture his ship, quick attack him for 100, then take your sweet time capturing while the game keeps him locked up. <img src="/static/img/namegameblue.gif" alt="namegameblue.gif (852 bytes)"> *On Sale, mass experience for only 35K - *If you can sucker someone into this, awesome. Because it is one of those things that makes people hate you, yet gives you great joy. For the price of an atomic detonator plus genesis torp, you can kill anyone if you can find a way to get them to land on the planet...and while they are down there, blow the planet and them up! Here are some starting storylines and tricks I used to make the land.... "The Tough, but Underpowered New Guy" - I once entered in a game, warped over to Stardock, bought my needed tools and immediately started making threats. I was brand new, and I called the top-dawg every name in the book and he thought I was hilarious. I mean, who am I to just walk right on in and tell him how its going to be from now on? So I said to him, "Capt Kirk, I can blow you up with just 30 fighters, versus your 50,000!" He was very doubtful, so I told him, "I'll make a planet right here, you put down the 30 fighters and I'll kick your ass!" So I made the planet, he went down to deploy and a few seconds later KA-FREAKIN-BOOM!! Then I mashed his pod as well. I ended my first 24 turns of that game with 15,000 experience. "The Greedy Bastards" - Another easy, and more likely to be effective, way is to go around and trade all your turns, then head back to Stardock and make a planet. Put down 3 or 5 of your own fighters. Wait till some jerk comes along, sees the planet and fighters, and goes down to get them (as if 3 OR 5 is a lot), and quickly go down and destroy him. "This Planet is for You" - Make a planet with some player's handle on it, such as naming a planet "Saluki gets beat by his wife" and then wait for Saluki to come and erase this atrocity. When he tries, take him out.

**Macros, I guess I am writing this as the master hC is unavailable. I learned the best combat macros playing with hC during WTC2001. I have since trained several peeps in the Art of Combat with zoc/twx The focus of this article will be ZOC user buttons and RES-Macros.** **First off current version of ZOC has 32 user defined buttons. 20 user defined Fkeys, 32 Auto Replies and 32 Auto Macros. We shall cover the 32 user defined buttons, using my set up as example.** **Ok 32 buttons here is a view of standard.zoc in the zoc/options folder. err well I have 31 here, leaving 1 button for on the fly use.** ``` [OPTS_MACROS] UserDesc#00="game" UserDesc#01="XPORT" UserDesc#02="SD" UserDesc#03="Voids" UserDesc#04="Ansi" UserDesc#05="Zone" UserDesc#06="Buy EQ" UserDesc#07="Buy Ore" UserDesc#08="Kill Port" UserDesc#09="Move" UserDesc#10="PAIR" UserDesc#11="Mega Buy" UserDesc#12="Sell" UserDesc#13="MEGA" UserDesc#14="LAND 38" UserDesc#15="NS Dock" UserDesc#16="STOP" UserDesc#17="a999" UserDesc#18="SD1" UserDesc#19="SD2" UserDesc#20="SD3" UserDesc#21="SD4" UserDesc#22="SD5" UserDesc#23="SD6" UserDesc#24="SD7" UserDesc#25="SD8" UserDesc#26="SD9" UserDesc#27="Tdrop" UserDesc#28="HOLO 2" UserDesc#29="CASH" UserDesc#30="Photon-Move" UserDesc#31="Pdrop" UserValue#00="rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr" UserValue#01="x1^Mq" UserValue#02="uy^M.^Mc" UserValue#03="cv0^Myyq" UserValue#04="cn1qqd" UserValue#05="^RUN=SCRIPT everend_zonedeploy.ZRX" UserValue#06="$ss2_BuyDown^M30^M0^M" UserValue#07="$ss2_BuyDown^M10^M0^M" UserValue#08="pay20000^M^M" UserValue#09="$ss1_Move^M" UserValue#10="^RUN=jackalpair.txt" UserValue#11="^RUN=SCRIPT everend_class7.zrx" UserValue#12="^RUN=_port_negotiate.ZRX" UserValue#13="^RUN=_megarob.zrx" UserValue#14="l 2^Mc" UserValue#15="x42^M" UserValue#16="$sx^M" UserValue#17="a999^M^M" UserValue#18="ay9999^M^M ay9999^M^M " UserValue#19="any9999^M ^M any9999^M^M " UserValue#20="anny9999^M ^M anny9999^M^M " UserValue#21="annny9999^M ^M annny9999^M^M " UserValue#22="annnny9999^M^M annnny9999^M^M " UserValue#23="annnnny9999^M^M annnnny9999^M^M " UserValue#24="annnnnny9999^M^M annnnnny9999^M^M " UserValue#25="annnnnnny9999^M^M annnnnnny9999^M^M " UserValue#26="annnnnnnny9999^M^M annnnnnnny9999^M^M " UserValue#27="^RUN=_tdrop.zrx" UserValue#28="qqshl 2^Mc" UserValue#29="tcyf99999999^M^M" UserValue#30="^RUN=SCRIPT everend_photonandmove.zrx" UserValue#31="^RUN=_pdrop.zrx" ``` Ok that is a partial view of standard.zoc file which is the backend of zoc buttons. The way to manually add a button is much different then editing this file. However, you can edit this file and save/reboot zoc to take instant affect. Adding a Macro go to Options-JumpTo-Buttons <img src="/static/img/add.jpg" /> Click Add <img src="/static/img/macro_button.jpg" /> Ok name your button then add the macro make sure you choose "TEXT TO SEND" thats it, now you have a new button. Ok procedure is same to add an Fkey however you just type in the macro <img src="/static/img/fkeys.jpg" /> Ok my sample LIST from Standard.zoc file The most common used macro in TW is ATTACK I have 9 attack buttons for FED or DOCK. Notice I have spacing in my macros, a double space will send a SPACE to TWGS. The purpose of this SPACE is to abort display. Various messages will be displayed while in combat in TW. Some of these messages and displays are time consuming and take up lots of screen Take for example landing on a planet with 30 planets in sector. When you use l to land you see all 30 planets listed below. If you use l with double spaces you tell TW to Land but dont display planet list. example `l 30^M` will land on cit #30 without filling up your screen with the full sector list of planets Another use is in combat, where you attack and blow up some one. if you use double spacing after each attack, if you kill some one, you wont get the DISPLAY Message that you killed them, thus eliminating the SCROLL after KILL message. Example `ay9999^M^M` Now remember RES always attacks with 2 or more shots at same time so my standard attack would look like this. `ayy9999^M^M ayy9999^M^M` Notice also I have 2 'y' in this sample. The extra `y` is for BEACONS, if you were to attack me with a beacon in sector your macro would hang up on the beacon, giving me time to POWER-UP. Whereas if there is no beacon the extra y will not effect the macro. WARNING WARNING IN FED if you use `ayy9999^M^M ayy9999^M^M` and miss your target the second wave might SHOOT A FED, hence you DIE. Recommend not using extra Y attack macro in FED, I use it mostly in my Fkey set up for planet battle. Ok back to display messages, you get a BIG LONG message while Pbusting planets for EXP. You can use spaces to speed up this macro to be 99.99% untouchable at dock ok sample bust macro for dock `quy.^Mcl zdy uy.^Mcl zdy ps` This will bust 2 planets and land back on dock. Notice there is no planet scanner on ship If you have a planet scanner, you must use exact CIT numbers. This gets tricky as you can be vulnerable at dock. Another factor to consider is when entering a SECTOR with CANNONS. If you warp into cannons you get a new PROMPT/PAUSE from being HIT by sector blasts. To remove this you would use a macro like this. Example `m8834^M^M` Double Enter characters will keep you moving through combat messages when being hit with cannons. So mothing its important to have lots of ENTER KEYS to keep your macro moving fast. Well that about does it for this article. Take a close look at my buttons you will see how I use ZOC buttons to run TWX scripts as well. Enjoy Res Judicata