TRADING

Probably the most important aspect of TW2002 which must be learned by all players, is trading. Throughout the TW2002 universe many ports can be found which buy and sell one of the three products: Fuel Ore, Organics, and Equipment. Fuel Ore being the least expensive, Organics moderately expensive, and Equipment the most expensive of all. Reasonably, Equipment provide the most profit when bought and sold, while Organics are less so, and Fuel Ore with a small profit to be made. The amount of product which you can buy and sell depends upon the number of holds which you have.

Now lets get into the way you trade. You move around from sector to sector, and when you find a port you want to buy from, press "P" to port, then enter "T" to trade. You will then see the amount of product which the port has and the amount of product which you have on board your ship. A percentage (%) is also given, this percentage is the percentage of product it has left to trade of the maximum of that product that it can trade. The higher the percentage, the greater the profit you will make. You now can buy or sell a product, by hitting the number of units you wish to purchase. Now you can bargain, to either buy for a lower price or sell it for a higher one. For a good estimate percentage to buy and sell at, use about 96% of their offer when buying, and 105% when selling. If you make a very good offer, and they accepted it, you may even get some experience points. Once you have bought a product, you must find another port which will buy it from you, for a profit. On the sector display, the products which a port buys and sells is denoted by the Class, and a display of , where each X is either a "B" or "S", for buy or sell. The first X is for Fuel Ore, the second for Organics, and the third for Equipment. Then follow the instruction on trading and bargaining from above.

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PAIRED PORT TRADING

Making a profit by trading can be a time wasting process. By finding what are called Paired Ports (PP) , you can make money much faster. Paired Ports are two ports, in adjacent sectors, which sell a product which the other buys, and buys a product which the other sells. By moving between sectors quickly, money can be made much faster. Paired ports which provide the most profit are ones which buy and sell Organics and Equipment. By using scripts and macros, this process can be done even faster. With 250 holds and a macro for PP trading, you can easily make a few hundred thousand credits in a matter of minutes. If you find paired ports which are not frequented by other traders, or better yet, are behind you line of defenses, you should seriously consider investing a few million for the upgrading of the port. Although this may seem expensive, it quickly brings returns. It will allow you to trade more often and for longer lengths of time.

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SHIPS

One of the most important decisions which you will have to make is what class of ship will you use. Quickly after joining a TW2002 game, you will find yourself outgrowing the Merchant Cruiser. Manu people have different opionions on what ship to save up for buying first. In my opinion, you should purchase a Colonial Transport (Colt). A Colt allows you to make much more money by trading, it is also great for colonizing. Once you have bought a Colt, you should trade and save up enough money to max out the holds (250). You buy holds at any of 3 Class 0 ports, one i salways in sector 1, or at the Star Dock, which can be found in most games by viewing the game information. Once you have 250 holds, you can very easily save up for another ship, one which is good in combat. That ship should be one of three ships. If you are good, get 500 alignment (see Alignment & Experience tutorial), get a commision (at the police dept. on Star Dock), and buy an Imperial StarShip (ISS). If you can't get a commision, either buy a Corporate Flagship, or a Battleship. If you are playing alone (make a corp.), or if you are a CEO, get the Corporate Flagship, otherwise buy a Battleship. Some people prefer a Havoc Gunstar over a Battleship, but I prefer the BShip.

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KILLING

The entertainment and main point of TW2002 lies in the thrill of killing other people. There are three different types of space travelers that you will meet. Traders, other live people playing TW2002, Aliens, just there for you pleasure to kill them, they won't attack you, and Ferrengi, the Space Pirates of TW2002. Ferrengi will attack you (take your cargo and holds) if you are in an under-defended ship.

Killing Aliens and Ferrengi wil not prompt an attack in revenge, however killing traders may leave you in a costly war, and even end in your death. However, killing all three types will give you experience, and aliens and traders will give you alignment modification. Killing Ferrengis will also get a fair amount of bounty credits. Capturing their ship allows you to keep their ship. To capture a ship, you must not attack with too many fighters. To determine how many fighters to attack with, multiply the number of fighters your victim has by the attack ratio of their ship, then divide your answer by the attack ratio of your ship, then subtract about 10% of your answer, and attack with that many fighters. If you do not capture the ship on the first attack, he will flee to a neighbooring sector, follow him (much easier with a holo scanner), and repeat the attack again, using same calculations. If you are certain that a ship has shields, adjust accordingly.

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PLANETS

As this is only an introduction to the planets, I will merely describe how each planet is useful. I will not divulge in how many of each type one should have in their home sectors.

Class M planets (Earth Type) are useful for production of all three products. They are the second best type of planet for the prodution of fighters. Class M planets also have low citadel construction rates.

Class L planets (Mountainous Type) are excellent for producing fighters. They also produce Ore and Organics at a fast rate. I keep most Class L planets because of their high production of fighters. These planets have a very fast construction rate for citadels.

Class V planets (Volcanic Type) are great for producing a powerful Quasar Cannon. They produce ore at a one to one ratio, while organics and equipment have useless production rates. Because they can produce a lot of ore, they produce a moderate number of fighters. A drawback of the volcanic planet, is its long citadel construction rates, but once this planet is shielded, watch out.

Class O planets (Oceanic Type) are useful for making money and organics, but not much more than that. Since they make a lot of organics (2:1 ratio), if you have a port in the same sector, with maxed out organic purchase levels, you can sell organics for a large sum of credits. However, since Mountainous planets produce organics at a decent rate, I wouldn't recommend keeping any, unless you can afford to defend it.

Class K planets (Desert/Wasteland Type) are useless, as are Class C planets (Glacial Type), and Class U planets (Gaseous Type), so destroy them. However, according to the planet specs, the Class U planets have a slight chance of producing a special mineral, however I have never found this mineral, or heard of anyone finding it.

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COLONIZING

A planet is worthless unless you transport colonists to the planet surface. On the surface the colonists are the means for the production of everything on the planet. Finding the most efficient and time saving method of transporting colonists from Terra (sector 1) to your planet is important for the effective growth of your planets.

Ingeneral, you will want to create you planets as close to sector 1 as you can, yet still be a fair distance away from the major space lanes, so that your planets aren't found as easily by others. The method of colonization which you choose is based upon what ships you have, and the alignment which you have.

Colonization for good traders is easier than for evil traders. This is because they may twarp into fedspace with an ISS. As a good trader you may transprt one of three ways. You may just express warp autopilot from your planet to sector 1 and back, this is the slowest and least effective method. The second method is twarping with a ship other than an ISS. You can place a fighter one sector out of fedspace, to be used as a twarp beacon. Just pickup enough fuel ore from the planet you are colnizing to make a round trip twarp. Warp to the sector juse outside fedspace, then warp to sector 1, pickup the colonists, and twarp back to your home sector. The third method is twarp with an ISS. This is the best and most prefferred method. This way you can twarp directly to sector 1, pickup you colonists, and twarp back to your home planet sector.

For evil traders, colonization can be slow and ineffective if the planet is far from sector 1. Most evil traders opt to just plunder colonized planets rather than colonize their own, but if you wish to colonize, use either of the first two methods describe in the previous paragraph for good traders.

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EXPERIENCE AND ALIGNMENT

The basic measure of score, and by which the rankings are determined, is experience points. Another "score" is your alignment, your alignment is important in determining how to best play the game. If you wish to get a commision for ISS, you must first get a positive 500 alignment (If you've ever been negative, you need 1000). If you want to rob and steal from ports, you will need at least a -100 alignment.

If you are good, and would like to raise your alignment, you can do so by placing a bounty on someone in the police department. This will rasie your alignment 1 point for every 1000 credits. If you are evil and want to raise your alignment, upgrading ports is the best method for you. Upgrading will get you 1 point for every 5000 credits spent. To begin on the evil path, you can jettison colonists, for 1 point per colonist group (1,000 actual). Once you can rob and steal, your alignment will lower quickly by just doing so. Killing colonists while on a planet will also lower your alignment, but it costs a number of fighters to do so.

Raising experience can be best done by creating and destroying planets. This will get you 75 experience points for every 35,000 credits spent. Killing ferrengi ships and toll fighters will also give you a fair amount of experience, plus some bounty credits in return.

Planet - Production Table
Note: Fig Production is the ratio of COLONISTS per FIGHTER produced
Planet Class	Colonists to Build			Planet Maximum			Fig Production
	Fuel	Organ	Equip	Fuel	Organ	Equip	Fuel	Organ	Equip
[M]	3	7	13	100K	100K	100K	30	70	130
[K]	2	100	500	200K	50K	10K	60	3000	5000
[O]	20	2	100	100K	1M	50K	300	30	1500
[L]	2	5	20	200K	200K	100K	24	60	240
[C]	50	100	500	20K	50K	10K	750	2500	12500
[H]	1	N/A	500	1M	10K	100K	50	N/A	25000
[U]	N/A	N/A	N/A	10K	10K	10K	N/A	N/A	N/A

Planets - Colonist Table
Planet Class	Max Colonist per Production	Optimal Number of Colonists	Fighter Production at Optimal Level
[M]	30,000	15,000	829
[K]	40,000	20,000	682
[O]	200,000	100,000	3,733
[L]	40,000	20,000	1,250
[C]	100,000	50,000	64
[H]	100,000	50,000	1,002
[U]	3,000	1,500	0

Planets - Citadel Construction
Note: Value in parenthesis denotes total day to produce a level 6
Earth Class [M] (43)
Citadel Level	Days	Colonists	Fuel Ore	Organics	Equipment
1	4	1000	300	200	250
2	4	2000	200	50	250
3	5	4000	500	250	500
4	10	6000	1000	1200	1000
5	5	6000	300	400	1000
6	15	6000	1000	1200	2000
Desert Class [K] (36)
Citadel Level	Days	Colonists	Fuel Ore	Organics	Equipment
1	6	1000	400	300	600
2	5	2400	300	80	400
3	8	4400	600	400	650
4	5	7000	700	900	800
5	4	8000	300	400	1000
6	8	7000	700	900	1600
Table not complete

Ships - General Stats
Ship Class	Price	Min Hold	Max Hold	Spd	Twarp	LRS	PScan
Merchant Cruiser	41,300	20	75	3	No	Yes	Yes
Scout Marauder	15,950	10	25	2	No	Yes	Yes
Missile Frigate	100,800	12	60	3	No	No	No
Battleship	88,500	16	80	4	No	Yes	Yes
Corporate Flagship	163,500	20	85	3	Yes	Yes	Yes
Colonial Transport	63,600	50	250	6	No	No	Yes
CargoTran	51,950	50	125	4	No	Yes	Yes
Merchant Freighter	33,400	30	65	2	No	Yes	Yes
Imperial StarShip	329,000	40	150	4	Yes	Yes	Yes
Table not complete