* Originally by Joel Downer

  The basic steal-sell cycle works as follows:  find a port 
that's selling equipment, and steal or buy 150 holds.  (When 
you're using ports identified with EVILPAIR.COM, it's actually 
smarter to buy than steal your first load.  Don't risk making a 
port angry with you when you may need to buy fuel ore there the 
same day!) 

Move to a port buying equipment -- preferably a port at 100%.  
Sell the equipment for the best price you can negotiate (see the 
section on the five-experience point trick, below.  Now, port and 
*STEAL BACK THE EQUIPMENT YOU JUST SOLD*.  Sell the equipment 
again, steal it, and repeat the process until you're caught or 
out of turns.  When you get caught, you'll lose 13 holds (out of 
150) and 10% of your experience.  Sometimes you'll be caught more 
often than you like, but if you steal a sensible amount (no more 
than one hold per 15 experience points), you'll typically make 
more than enough to compensate for the trouble. 

Important:  When you get caught, write down the location and the 
date.  You won't be able to port there for at least 14 days 
without getting busted again (even if you just port to *trade*, 
you may get nailed).  After a couple of weeks, you can go back 
and work the ports again. 

  The five experience-point cycle works as follows.  The first 
time you dock at a port, accept the port's first offer for your 
equipment.  Write down the offer, and using a calculator and the 
results from your psychic probe to calculate and round off the 
best price.  (E.g.:  first offer was 19,200; psychic probe 
reports 96.69% of best.  Best price = 19,200 / .9669 = 
(int)19857.2 = 19857. 

Steal back the equipment and dock again.  If the first offer if 
within half your number of holds (75 in a StarShip) of the first 
offer from last time (19125 - 19275) bid the number that you 
calculated last time (19857).  If the offer is substantially 
higher or lower, adjust the best price by a multiple of your 
number of holds.  If the offer is 19,325 (125 higher), bid 150 
higher; if the offer is 265 higher, bid 300 higher; if it's 700 
higher, bid 750 higher. 

When in doubt, overbid.  If the port refuses your initial offer, 
you can still often get the five experience points; just 
understand that the best price will *change*, by 30% of the 
difference between your offer and the original best price. 

Example:  The port offers 19,278, and you bid 20,007.  Oops!  The 
port tries to barter, telling you that you guessed wrong -- 
evidently, the best price was still 19,857.  Your error has 
changed the best price by 150 * .30, or 45 credits, so the *new* 
best price should be 19,902. 

This approach will not work at every port.  Some ports don't seem 
to have a best price; at others, the initial estimate with the 
psychic probe will actually be a few credits low or high.  If you 
master this technique, though, you'll be able to get five 
experience points on *every sale* at many ports, and on *most 
sales* at many others. 

  Price guidelines:  *very good* equipment-buying ports will pay 
22,000 - 23,500 credits for 150 holds of equipment.  Spending 
tons of turns looking for the perfect port can end up *wasting* 
money, though, because every turn in a StarShip is worth at least 
9,000 credits.  (What's more, tooling around in a StarShip when 
evil is *dangerous*!)  I'm usually content to work a port that 
offers 20,000 for 150 holds, and I'll sometimes put up with ports 
paying as little as 19,000.  Ports that only offer 16,000 - 
17,000, however, are taking things a little far... <grin> 

