by Guardian » Mon Jan 19, 2015 12:39 am
Found the following in a website. Good info, however the server they were playing on didn't start you out with your own planet. Soooo... you have to throw that into the mix as well as for what to do at the beginning.
This is far from being the last word in TradeWars strategy. It is designed to help someone new to TW's (or v2.0) get off to a good start. Some of the info is accurate for other versions, some of the info isn't.
What to do First: As soon as you join the game, you want to find SD (StarDock.) In many screens, its listed on the V-Screen (V at the main command prompt.) In others, you have to hunt for it. As soon as your find SD, you should get into a new ship. The Merchant Cruiser you started in isn't a very good ship, so you should sell it. I usually buy a Merchant Freighter the first day of a new game. You might want to drop off your fighters first, outside of fedspace, because their trade-in value is pretty low. Then you can pick them up in the new ship. After buying a ship, buy a long range scanner for it, even if its just a density scanner. Then buy as many holds as you can afford, saving about 1,500 credits to use as starting cash when you go trading. Priorities after that: Holo-scanner (includes a built in density scanner), 25-50 or so fighters (you don't need many yet) and etherprobes.
How to make money: As a good aligned trader, your common money-maker is paired port trading. Equ/Org (Equipment/Organics) pairs are best. Two ports in adjacent sectors where you can sell Equ/buy Org at one, and sell Org/buy Equ at the other. Move back and forth, trading in each sector, till one of the ports runs dry. Then move to another pair. Later in the game, once you have a planet with a level four (L4) citadel, you can make a lot more money every day.
How to stay safe: With good alignment and 0-999 experience, you can stay overnight in fedspace with almost no risk as long as "Ships per fedspace sector" allows it. (Check the V-screen.) Too many ships will get you towed when Extern runs (but you are protected until then.) Carrying too many fighters (50, I believe?) will also get you towed out during Extern. Next best after that is cloaking, and cloaking can be done anywhere (by any alignment.) Cloaks are not 100% safe: they can fail after 24 hours, they will cause an anomaly on a density scan, and while no one can attack you while you are cloaked, they can fill the sector with mines, offensive fighters, or navhazard.
By being careful where you stay at night (cloaking in low traffic areas, or using fedspace) and density scanning before you move (to avoid mines and such) you can stay alive, rarely, if ever, getting blown up.
Alignment: Good alignment is much easier to play, and has several advantages, such as the ISS (Imperial Star Ship) and the ability to Transwarp direct to fedspace. Evil requires more knowledge, and isn't recommend for new players. Regardless of which alignment you choose, you should eventually learn the basics of both, just so you'll know how players of the opposite alignment will be doing things.
How to spend your Turns: 95% of your turns (maybe more) need to be spent making money. Thats how you finance the other 5%, when you are invading planets and such. Your day-to-day ship should be chosen with money-making in mind. Good choices are the Merchant Freighter, Corp-Flagship, and the ISS. (Evils should look at the Colonial Transport, also.) Horde turns. Turns can be translated into money made, colonists transported, etc. Don't waste them.
Etherprobes and Exploration: Etherprobes are very cost-efficient - you can do a lot of exploring for little money and few turns. Sending a few of them on long routes (with lots of unexplored sectors) will help you find trade-pairs to make money at. By the time you trade those down, you can afford more etherprobes. In the long run, you'll want to do most of your exploring with etherprobes, saving your turns to use making money.
Scanning: When moving, always move & scan. Density scanning doesn't cost turns, but can keep you from running into mines, etc. When you have several sectors you can move to, and no particular destination (which happens early in the game), choose sectors with a density of 100. These are usually ports, so this increases your chance of finding trade pairs. (And you can make a little money while your looking.) Holo-scanning is very useful when there are several unexplored sectors next to you. You can explore them all, and it only costs you one turn.
Planets: When you are ready to develop a planet, 25,000 credits for a genesis torpedo is a good investment: You can pick your own home sector: one which is easier to defend and harder to find. The freebie planet sometimes has some products and/or a couple of fighters when you get it. If so, take the fighters and product, then move on.
Ferrengi: If the ferrengi ask you to surrender your holds, do it. If you have equ. or org. on board, they'll just take the product and leave you alone till you log out. If you have fuel, they'll take the fuel and some holds. If you fight them, or try to run, you'll get a ferrengi grudge. This is something to avoid, especially early in the game. You can kill ferrengi sector fighters without getting a grudge - but attack or run from their ships, and you'll get one. There is no good way to get rid of a grudge.
Comissions: As a "good", you want to get an ISS as soon as possible. To do that, you need 500 alignment points. Then ask for a commission at the fedstation. The feds will bump your alignment to 1000, which means you are commissioned. (Even if you didn't ask, 1000 alignment is commissioned.) The best way to get the 500 alignment is to post rewards on evils in the fedstation. 1000 credits per 1 point of alignment gain. So you could move from 0 to 500 for 500k, then ask for a commission to reach 1000. With 1000 or higher alignment, you can buy an ISS.
Unecessesary Expenses: Be careful not to log out of the game with a lot of credits on you. As a good, when you reenter the game, that will cause you to get taxed. It raises your alignment, but costs you the taxes. Alignment that way costs 1,500 per point, so bounties are cheaper. You can also raise it by attacking evil aliens, but that too is expensive and not recommended. Aliens are a distraction. Using your resources to attack them isn't worthwhile, even if you capture their ships.
T-Warping: Once you have a commission and an ISS, you can Twarp (transwarp) direct to fedspace (sectors 1-10 and SD), or to any sector you've deployed a fighter. This can save a lot of turns. Twarp uses 3 fuel (from your holds) per sector distance. You can also blind Twarp, which is safe as long as the destination sector is completely empty. If it's not, you get a shiney new escape pod. To do it safely, send an eprobe, and immediately Twarp to a completely empty sector. I avoid sectors with aliens, feds, or ferrengi in the adjacent sectors shown by the eprobe, because right after you fire the probe (any time you pass a command prompt) they get an opportunity to move - you don't want them moving into your destination sector! Also, be warned that limpets don't show on eprobes, but will destroy you.
Colonization: When you decide to build a planet (goods tend to do this fairly soon after getting the ISS) then find a dead end. I recommend a 1 or 2 deep dead end, at least 6-7 warps from sector 1. Deep dead ends are the first place good competition will look for your planet. Shallow ones take them a little longer. (There are more of them to check.) I recommend a sector with no port, so you don't have to worry about blocking a port report and someone coming to check it out. As soon as you build your planet, move several loads of fuel ore onto it. (Remember your Twarp drive when doing this. And thats what the fuel is for, too, as we go get colonists.) Calculate fuel needed to Twarp to sector 1, and back again. Starting with that much fuel on board, Twarp to 1, grab colonists, Twarp home (you did drop a fighter at home, didn't you?) and drop off the colonists. Then grab fuel from the planet and repeat. You generally want the colonists producing fuel at first. That provides fuel to go get more colonists, and on most planets it produces the maximum fighters per day.
Citadels: Once you start building a planet, haul in as many colonists as you need to start citadel construction, then haul in any products needed. Don't wait 'till your colonists can produce enough organic/equipment - haul it in. You want your construction to take as little time as possible. The day it reaches L1, start it working on L2. Etc. Remember that fighters on a planet do *not* defend it (and are free for anyone who lands there) until the planet has a L2 citadel. Keep them on your ship, or use them as sector defense. (Sector defense isn't worth a lot, as a photon can bypass it, but its better than leaving them on a planet with a L1 citadel, or no citadel at all. And sector defense is better than leaving the planet undefended.)
In the long run, the way to win a game is to have two or three very strongly defended planets, all with money in the citadel's collecting 2% interest a day, and at the same time not allowing your opponents to keep a planet with a citadel. It is very expensive to invade planets, and the stronger the planet is when you try to invade, the more expensive. So try to find and destroy their planets early - ideally, before they reach L2. Once a planet reaches L4, even when you find it, if you can't invade *that day*, they can Twarp it away, and you have to find it again. Always try to find and destroy their planets as early as possible. The V-screen, again, can help. It tells the # of planets, and % of citadels, so you can make reasonable guesses about what they are doing. The V-screen also shows total # of fighters & mines in the game and several other useful things - keep an eye on it.
Most of the time, you should only develop 1 or 2 planets at a time, both in the same sector. Trying to keep and defend several planets can spread your defenses to thin, making your vulnerable. When you invade someone elses, you are usually best off to just blow it up. Always destroy or remove the colonists before using the atomic detonator - else you may get blown up with it.
Evil Techniques: I think that covers most of the basics. Lets skim over a couple of more advanced things. Evils basic money-maker is called SST. (Sell, Steal, Transport.) It requires two ships (usually two CT's or a CT and a CF.) (Colonial Transport and Corporate Flagship.) Find two equipment buying ports in transporter range. Both ships full of equipment, one in each sector. In the first sector, sell the equipment, steal it back, then transport to the other ship. Do the same there, and transport back. You have to have -100 or lower alignment, and a lot of experience, for this to be effective, but it can be very profitable. Evils goal is to be using this effectively early in the game, and to keep the good-aligned traders from ever having a L4 citadel. SST will make more money than goods can make trading ports, so goods need at least one L4 in order to run PT (Planetary Trading).
Citadel Transporters: Both evils and goods can take advantage of citadel transporters. You can build one in any citadel. They transport you and the ship you are in to another sector. A "good" can cut his 10 turn ISS colonists runs down to 7 turns using one, for instance. Evils could use two L4 or better planets, Twarp each to one of the sectors they would run SST in, and run a variant of SST, but instead of using two ships and ship transporters, use one ship and planet transporters. Goods can trade non-adjacent paired ports the same way, and save a number of turns to boot. That is very profitable. (Planetary Trading). You can do sort of the same thing with only one planet. At a xBS planet, for instance, you sell organics, buy equipment. Land. Leave the equ. on the planet, and pick up organics. Repeat until the port is empty. Then move to another port. If you run low on organics on the planet, start using a xSB port, selling the equipment you've been buying, and buying organics.
Each game that is run can have up to 500 players in the Galaxy that is created. 
You port and trade 3 main goods. Fuel Ore, organic, and equipment. You try to buy and sell the product at different ports to make as good of a sell as possible, and if you make a really good deal, you gain experience(which there are leader boards for exp). So, you trade and make money, you use this to buy fighters and shields for your ship along with transporting and bringing more people to your planet that you get when you first start the game. 
