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TradeWars: Player's Guide
(Day One Activities)
Due to the number of new players joining our Tradewars Universe - I decided to start publishing a Tradewars New Player Guide. Any contributions from the other experienced players are encouraged. Just use the Submit News feature on the website and I will post your work.
Let me begin by pointing you to this very complete Tradewars Guide: Beginners Guide. Having shared that, I will include my own tips below as a much shorter guide:
DAY ONE:
After starting your character, you will want to make sure that you know how to navigate the universe. You begin the game on your home planet. At the planet prompt there are several options, they are fairly self explanatory. It is important to note that you will likely end up abandoning this planet. However, you may want to try and learn how to upgrade it so that you will be prepared to upgrade planets in your actual chosen base later in the game. Hit 'U' to see what items you need to upgrade this planet to the next level. At higher levels, your planets will defend themselves from attack with a Quasar cannon (which uses fuel). Hit 'Q' to launch from your planet. You will find yourself in your home sector above the planet.
At first, you will only have standard warp drive, which means you can only move one sector at a time. At the main prompt you will see a "Warps to Sectors" section. This is your adjacent warp list from your current location.
The universe is made up of many sectors, each of which will be connected with 1 to 6 other sectors. As you travel the universe using SWATH, a database is being automatically built to supply data to your Visual Map (a button on your toolbar).
To visit a different sector, simply type in that sector number at the main command prompt. If you enter a sector number that is not immediately adjacent to your current sector, a path to that sector will be displayed. Also, you will be given a choice of warping to that sector - 'Y' - or staying where you are - 'N' - approaching that sector in single step (one sector at a time) - 'S' - or flying non-stop Express - 'E'. Hitting 'Y' will cause you to pause along the way if you see any ports or planets, because you might want to stop and take a look.
You may or may not have a port in your beginning sector. Ports will be listed at the main prompt along with available warps. As you explore the universe SWATH also gathers information about ports that you find. Each port will trade different items. Your goal is to locate port pairs.
Port pair trading an easy way to make money fast. As you look at a port it will have a description of what it sells. For example, BBS means that the port Buys Fuel and Organics and Sells Equipment. The items are always listed in the same order Fuel, Organics, Equipment. A good port pair for the port we just described would be a port with BSB or BBS. This way, you can buy equipment in one sector - move to the next and sell the Equipment, then immediately by Organics, move back to the other sector and sell the Organics then immediately buy Equipment - then repeat! The good news - SWATH has this built into a script already for you. There is a 'pair trade' button on the trading toolbar (you might need to activate this toolbar from your pull down menus). The button will only be highlighted when SWATH is aware that you are in a sector with an adjacent port pair - meaning you have visited both sectors before.
Make sure your holds (cargo hold) are empty (hit 'J' to jettison if necessary) and click the 'pair trade' button. It will move nice and fast and it will stop when you hit the 'ESC' key or when one of the ports runs out of one of a commodity.
Important: Organics and Equipment pair trading is the most profitable pair type. You can pair trade with fuel, but it is not as cost effective.
In addition to learning to navigate and pair trade, you may want to try and attack an alien ship when you find one. SWATH has attack or capture buttons that work only if the alien ship is a 'Stock' TradeWars ship. Alien Trader and Ferrengi ships are all stock, while Cardassian, Bajoran, and Borg ships are not. If the button won't work, you can hit 'A' at the command prompt. You stand a pretty good chance of winning if you have the same number of fighters or more than your enemy.
Killing aliens gains you alignment and experience. Good alien's names are blue while evil alien's names are red. Your own alignment determines if you are evil or good. A negative number = Evil and a positive number = Good. You can play as good (blue) or evil (red) - it is up to you - but new players will have a much easier time playing as good (blue). As a blue player, you can spend your time offline in sector 1 - 10 (Fedspace sectors - they all have a beacon indicating Fedspace) or at Stardock and you will be protected by the Federation AI ships. Once you reach higher levels of experience this is no longer true.
It is essential to locate Stardock. The game actually provides the location to all players. At the main command prompt simply type 'V' to view game status. This gives you information about the server, but also shows the location of Stardock. Type in the sector number to go there. At Stardock, you can buy everything you need to play the game. Use the link at the top of this page for a more detailed guide around stardock.
IMPORTANT: The last thing you need to do on Day One is run the ZTM script from within SWATH. There is a button for this as well - Map Universe - look for it on your toolbar. This will take up to several hours. So you will likely want to leave it running and go to bed. Once you press the Map Universe button it allows you to select 4 steps for mapping. Do all 4 and for Step 3 - I suggest at least 250 random sectors.
Other Notes: To obtain Transwarp drive you will need to visit the Hardware Imporium at Stardock. The Transwarp drive is only available on certain ships. It uses fuel every time you jump. The drive allows you to 'skip' sectors by jumping across them instantly.
Once you reach 1,000 positive alignment you can obtain a federal Commission from the police station on Stardock. This gives you access to the best overall ship in the game - the Imperial Starship.
Once you capture or purchases a second ship, you can move between ships by using the transporter. Hit 'X' at the command prompt to try this. Different ships have different transporter ranges.
Another important thing to know is: in order to add colonists to your planets you need to go to sector 1. This is Terra (Earth). You can carry colonists in your cargo holds and bring them back to your planet. WARNING: jettisoning colonists will remove some of your alignment!
This is it for now - Good Luck!
Author: Orion
Date Published: 09/02/2002
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