There are so many different ways to play Tradewars that to try and compile all the different strategies here would be fruitless. If you read the entire guide you should have a pretty good idea about how to go about the game. The most important thing is getting a group of players together BEFORE the game starts and assign tasks. It is NOT recommended that you play solo in any game that allows more then 1 on a corp. While it isn’t necessary to have a complete corp (all slots used) it is recommended. so for the sake of an example here is a standard strategy to play Tradewars with the goal of not only surviving but being competitive:

Split Corp

Team size: 5 (for example)

First thing is pick a CEO, this player should have a good working knowledge of Tradewars AND how to handle the day to day task of keeping the corp running smooth.

Next you will need to split up duties this is where the game may well be won or lost for your team. You need 3 evils and 2 goods. You will need to find the players that have the best ability to play evil and that’s what they do MAKE CASH (see Playing “EVIL) the other 2 players will colonize a bubble (see Playing “GOOD”) and to ship refurbs. This requires 2 separate corps working as a single team in the same area (at least in the beginning)

After the first couple of days (see Starting The Game) you will want to start building your team bubble (see Playing “GOOD”) and defending it your evil players will be making cash while the good players are planet farming, colonizing and refurbing ships.

The best way to refurb ships is buy having your goods buy Merchant Freighters at stardock and twarp tow them into the bubbles and have the evils destroy them while they are in their SST (colts) ship and gain the holds off the ships (this can be done with mules as well for larger amounts of holds)

I think when you are first starting off you keep a low profile, your corp shouldn’t draw unwanted attention to itself by talking “smack” over fedcom or by waxing toll fighters. best to stay quiet, play your game, pay the tolls and acquire assets then stomp the enemy.

The rest comes as you play, which is the great part about Tradewars, you will have to adjust on the fly. Just remember that most good players take great joy in killing off loud mouths, keep your head low and you should be OK. Let the “powers that be” fight it out between themselves and then walk in and sweep up the ashes.

When the game starts, you start in one of 2 places, sector 1 or a random sector with a planet (Sysop configurable.) Most of the time this planet is junk and is not worth keeping. Most are in vulnerable positions, not dead ends. That makes them hard to defend, and easy for opponents to find. So you should just write down the sector number (so you can find it again even after someone else claims it) and forget about it 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.

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. In that case, you can drop fighters in sectors surrounding fedspace around sector 1 (Just before extern runs) The feds will remove any in the MSL’s (Major Space Lanes.) A MSL will run from 1 to SD, and another will run back the other direction. (These could be duplicate routes, but usually aren’t.) When the feds pick up your fighters, they’ll send you a msg. saying “Don’t deploy fighters in the MSL’s.” and give you the sector #. Write it down. Then deploy fighters around the MSL, to find the next sector in the route to SD. It will take a week or more, usually, to find SD this way, but its better than random chance. Once you find it, be sure to note the location you’ll come back here often.

A sample of the screen:

Trade Wars 2002 Game Configuration and Status

Initial Turns per day 750, fighters 30, credits 300, holds 20. Inactive players will be deleted after 7 days. Maximum players 200, sectors 5000, ports 3250, planets 1000 The Maximum number of Planets per sector: 5, Traders on a Corp: 5 The Stardock is located in sector 3880. Photon Missile Wave duration is 10 seconds. Ver# 2.03 running under The Major BBS. This game has been running for 90 days.

-=-=-=- Current Stats for 09/09/09 as of 05:05:02 AM -=-=-=-

3,097 ports are open for business and have a net worth of 87,722,113. 1319 planets exist in the universe, 22% have Citadels. 142 Traders (76% Good) and 50 Aliens (48% Good) are active in the game. 108,023,333 Fighters and 2,779 Armid Mines are in use throughout the Universe. 39 Corporations are in business.

While the above method works well it takes a long time to complete (days to week) It is possible to locate SD using zero-turn mapping (see “Helper Programs”). Run your 0-turn mapping program and when its done look at the sectors with 6 exit sectors this is usually a list about 20 to 30 sectors big, split the sectors up among your corpies and set paths to them trading along the way and running any pairs you may find. If you run throught the complete list of sectors with 6 exits then do 5 (about twice as many sectors) and if that still doesn’t find it do the sectors with 7 or more (only a handful of sectors). This may seem like a lot of sectors its not really and you will find not only stardock but the class 0 ports as well most times.

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. Buy a Merchant Freighter (in most cases) the first day of a new game. Drop off your fighters first, outside of fedspace, 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:

1. Full Holds 2. Holo-scanner (includes a built in density scanner) 3. 99 fighters (you don’t need many yet) 4. Etherprobes.

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. 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.

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. 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. Horde turns. Turns can be translated into money made, colonists transported, etc. Don’t waste them.

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.

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, 99 or more, 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, nav haz or simply fire a photon into the sector and decloak you.

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.

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 Stardock. The federation will then increase your alignment to 1000, which means you are commissioned. One way to get the 500 alignment is to post rewards on evils in the Stardock. 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. Another way is to find a evil player that is willing and cross-pod with him With 1000 or higher alignment, you can buy an ISS. If you happen to get 1,000 or more alignment you are automatically commissioned without going to police head quarters.

What’s the most cost effective way to get good alignment?

(1) CROSS PODDING WITH AN EVIL PARTNER – cost varies Simply have your evil partner jump in a ship other then a scout with 0 shields and 0 fighters and hit him/her with 1 fig (NO MORE!) you can do this 2 times per day per player

(2) POST REWARDS ON EVIL PLAYERS – cr 1,000/al. pt. Not available to negatively aligned players. If the object of the bounty is locatable, reward money may be recouped almost immediately.

(3) PAY TAXES – cr 1,500/al. pt. Not available to negatively aligned players. Has no return and no possibility of recouping the money.

(4) BUILD PLANETS – cr 2,000/al. pt. Not available to negatively aligned players. Returns are you get to keep the planet. Hopefully, this was something you were planning on doing anyway, but it’s a long way to 500 alignment points doing this.

(5) KILL BAD GUYS – cost varies An evil trader or alien with -250 alignment and 200 fighters in a merchant will cost you about cr 400 / al. pt.

(6) UPGRADING PORTS – cr 5,000 /al. pt. This method can provide future returns if you can control the area around the port(s). It is also the most expensive.

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.

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 shinny new escape pod. To do it safely, send an eprobe, and immediately Twarp to a completely empty sector. 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.

When you decide to build a planet (goods tend to do this fairly soon after getting the ISS) then find a tunnel or a bubble (a bubble is simply a connection of tunnels with 1 way in) find a dead end off that bubble or tunnel, a sector with no port, so you don’t have to worry about blocking a port report and someone coming to check it out.

Next thing to do is get yourself a planet. The only 3 planets worth much in the game are the H, O and L although some players build an earth type later on in the game for equipment production. I recommend that you start with an L class mountainous as your first planet, it makes more fighters per day per colonist then any other planet and it is a good producer of product in all categories, not the best in any but a good solid planet (see “Planets). As soon as you build your planet, move several loads of fuel ore onto it. (Remember your Twarp drive when doing this. And that’s 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 and unload the colonists. Then grab fuel from the planet and repeat. Its recommended that you use a macro or helper program for this procedure (see “Helpers”). 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.

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 until 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 Level 1, start it working on Level 2. repeat this procedure until the planet reaches Level 6. If you have more turns, cash or corpies that can help repeat this process. This time try for an H or an O

You have just started your home sector or base once it is completed you will want to start moving out in the bubble or tunnel and start developing these sectors. Lets discuss bubble or tunnel development please keep in mind that as it is generally accepted that bubble development is a job of a good but you will notice that in this example you are also building for evil players as well.

Development of your bubble is the most important part of the game if you plan on winning or even being a force in the game. We have already discussed your base or home sector and that should be started and well under way before you start this procedure. Best case scenario is a bubble with around half of the sectors containing a xBB but for our example we will use a 12 sector bubble with 3 planets per sector max and 0 ports, not very likely depending on how your Sysop sets up the game. So all the ports in the bubble will need to be built. the planets listed are the H-O-L it isn’t important if you have an H and a L in every sector but its very important to have an oceanic in every sector, as organic farming is a big chunk of a goodie corps cash.

Note that the location of the home sector is determined by the # of buffer sectors, you want an invading enemy to have to go threw as much defense as possible to find you.

Home Sector
S-1 <—- Sector #
SBB <—- Port Type
L-H-O <—- Planets
|
|
S-2
SBB
H-O-L
|
|
S-7 S-3
SBB SBB To Open
H-O-L H-O-L Space
| | |
| | |
S-6 S-4 S-5 S-11 S-12 To Open
SBS———–SBB—–SBB—–SBB—–SSS—- Space
H-O-L / H-O-L |
| / |
| / To Open
S-8 S-9 S-10 Space
SBB SBB SBB
H-O-L H-O-L H-O-L

This bubble is only for an example all bubbles will be different but
building them is basically the same. The bubble when you first get it will
not look like this, you will have to build it up in stages the sector #’s
above represent the order in which you want to do this.

You will also notice that all but 1 sector have SBB ports (selling Fuel ore, buying Organics and buying Equipment) This is so you can sell your organics as well as have evils set up colts to SST. The reason for the single SBS port is because planets produce equipment slowly and you will need it for planet upgrades (even with evils).

Building the sectors in the bubble is pretty easy making the cash to do it however isn’t (that’s where a evil partner corp comes in handy). When you have the cash to start each new sector this is the formula you will want to follow early in the game;

first you will want to build the port, then you will want to move enough colonists to the planets to start or upgrade the citadels, then once all the planets citadels are started upgrading move all the colonists in the sector (up to 20 million) to fuel ore production on the L planet (once a planet citadel has started construction it is not necessary to leave the colonists on the planet for the amount of days for the upgrade) L planets produce the best amount of fighters per colonist while making fuel ore at an acceptable rate. While you are waiting for the port to finish construction you will want to colonize the sector with as many turns as possible (hopefully you have a full corp or a evil corp partner and can concentrate on colonizing)

If you have a 5 man good corp and non of you play evil (not recommended) you would want at least 2 of them colonizing full turns into the sector while the other members make cash. When the port finishes you should know the port regen your Sysop has set for the game upgrade the organics to a full 32,000 holds (this will be 3100 as new ports start at 1000) and then place the amount of colonists required to produce 32,000 organics over the port regen period on the O class planet in organics production. The formula for this is:

32,000 / the port regen = the amount needed to produce per day amount need per day * 2 = amount of colonists needed in organics production

Lets say for example you have a port regen of 4 days then the formula would look like this:

32,000 / 4 = 8,000 * 2 = 16,000

so with a 4 day regen you need 16,000 colonists in organics production in order to have 32,000 by the time the port reaches 100% and every 4 days you will get between 2.8 million and 3.3 million credits from the sale of organics (depending on the port)

Now you just need to continue building out sector by sector in order like the example bubble above, also note that the order in which you build #’s 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 doesn’t really matter the most important thing is building sectors 1 -5 in order and 11 and 12 last, the reason for this is the closer you are to a space lane the more likely your new home will be discovered (it will be discovered anyway you do it you just want to prolong it as long as possible)

You will notice that sectors 11 and 12 don’t have planets in them that is because they are the last sectors you will build up and if you make it through the first 10 sectors without being invaded they will be the stronghold front door. You will want to warp your bruiser planets in (H planets that you develop in sectors 1-10) the benefit of warping in door planets is you can decide the firing order of the planet quasars by the planet # which can prevent mothing (draining of fuel) by weaker ships. in a 3 planet sector setup you’d want the first planet to fire strong enough to destroy a small ship and planets 2 and 3 set to hit a stronger for ships with more then 5k figs, this makes the mothers pay a heavy price for draining your fuel, remember that atmospheric shots are the best for quasars and you don’t want to waste you fuel shooting off in the sector, just set it strong enough for them to feel a sting when they come in if they are really there to invade (1/4 of there fighters destroyed when they enter the sector is a good start, then set the atmospheric so if they land anywhere they leave the sector in a pod.

As you build up your sectors you will move the bulk of you defenses (fighters not on your ships) to the new “door” sector. Remember that fighters on a planet do *not* defend it (and are free for anyone who lands there) until the planet has a Level 2 citadel (see “Planets”). 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 Level 1 citadel, or no citadel at all. And sector defense is better than leaving the planet undefended.)

Evil requires more knowledge, and isn’t recommended for new players. Its better to get a few games under your belt before trying to play a serious game of evil.

The Basics of evil play: First thing start the game basically the same as if you were playing “good” (see Playing “GOOD”). But when you get to 1k exp you will want to start to steal, probably SSM to begin until you make enough cash to buy some support defense fighters, then buy another Merchant Freighter and begin to SST (both explained in detail below) Playing “evil” is much harder to play then being a positive alignment player but it is far for more lucrative. The following techniques are the basics and once you have these down you can begin to find for yourself the more advanced ways of becoming a dominant player, and implement them into your game

Sell-Steal-Move: This method is the basic method of earning credits for Evil traders. You MUST be Evil (-100 or more) to do this. To use this method you need to have a ship and some Exp. Points (min 1k exp recommended) A safe number of Exp. points is determined by this formula: Holds x 20 = number of exp. points needed. You can go as low as 15 but but you are increasing your risk of a bust.

There is a built in chance for a bust so you are never 100% assured of getting away with stealing. The basic method is to start with a load of Equ. in your holds over a port that is buying equ. and is next to another port that is also buying equ. These are called “Evil Pairs” You then port and sell your Equ. Do NOT buy other products unless you are using a jettison method of earning extra exp points. You then port again and steal back your Equ. You MUST now move to another port that buys Equ. (NEVER steal or rob from the same port twice in a row) and repeat the selling and stealing process before moving back to the first port. You can find a large number of “Evil Pairs” in the game if you look for them. The best ships to use this method in are the Low turn ships like the Merchant Freighter Your spending most of your Turns in movement and this prevents you from earn as many credits as other methods.

The loop looks like this: 8 turn loop in a 2 turn ship

1. Port and sell Equipment (Equ) 2. Port and Steal Equ 3. Move to port that is adjacent 4. Port and sell Equ. 5. Port and Steal Equ 6. Move back to First Port 7. Repeat until busted.

Sell-Steal-Transport: This method is the major method Evils can use for earning credits early in the game until they can afford to set up more lucrative techniques. It requires the same Exp points as the method mentioned above. It also requires that you have two ships that have decent transporter range. You must have Equ loaded in both ships and they must be over 2 separate Equ buying ports that are within transporter range of each other. You then sell the Equ and steal it back. You then transport over to your 2nd ship and sell the Equ and Steal it back. You then transport back to the 1st ship and repeat the whole process. You can make the most profit if you use COLT’s, but you will use 2 other “stepping stone” ships, the freighter and the mule. The types of ships and number of holds you have need not be the same. This method is VERY time consuming and is best used when a script or macro is available (see Helpers).

The Loop looks like this: 6 turns per loop

1. Port and Sell Equ 2. Port and Steal Equ 3. Transport over to your second ship 4. Port and Sell Equ 5. Port and Steal Equ 6. Transport back to your first ship 7. Repeat until busted.

Using either method it is very important that you haggle for the exp points you can earn from good trading. Due to busts you will always be losing exp. So every effort must be made to earn Exp as you are trading.

Rob-Move-Rob: This method is useful only by Evils and is limited by the fact that not every port has excess credits to rob. Again you MUST have Exp. points to do this with minimum risk of getting busted. A safe number of credits to rob is determined by the following formula:

Exp. points x 7 = Number of credits you can rob.

But the ratio can be used anywhere between 3 and 10 times your Exp. You may find 7 is best for you or another variable it is recommended you start at 5 times experience and try many different variables to find which you like best.

This method is best run at pairs that Good aligned traders are using. It will never produce enough profits to make it the ONLY method you use to earn credits, but it can turn a nice profit. You can rob credits from the port with the most and move to the other 1/2 of the pair and rob only a small amount and then return to the 1st port and rob again. By robbing only a small part from the 2nd port you give yourself the chance to return to the port with the large amounts of credits ripe for robbing. Don’t get greedy and rob everything from the “weak” port or you will have to resort to the method mentioned below. The basic method is simple. Rob the credits and move to the 2nd port rob only a few of the credits and return to the first port and repeat until your busted or the ports are empty. This method is best done in a low turn ship.

The loop looks like this: 6 Turn Loop (in a 2 turn ship)

1. Rob credits (This port has Lots of Credits it sells Equ) 2. Move to Adjacent port 3. Rob credits 4. Move back to the First port 5. Repeat until busted or ports are drained

Rob-Transport-Rob: Again this method is open only to Evil traders and requires the same Exp points that the method above required. You can use this method to only rob from ports with large amounts of credits in them. This method is more turn effective then the method above. However it does require two ships with a good transporter range just as you would if you were doing Sell-Steal- Transport. The methods are very similar. You rob credits and then transport to the 2nd ship. Rob credits and transport back to the first ship. 2 Gunstars with 0 holds work great with this method.

The loop looks like this: 4 turn loop

1. Rob Credits 2. Transport to second ship 3. Rob Credits 4. Transport back to first ship 5. Repeat until busted or ports are drained.

This method is for using on those Equ selling ports that contain massive amounts of Credits left behind. You can make very good money doing this but sooner or latter it dries up and you have to give it a rest and go back to running SST. Or another money making technique.

Advanced Techniques

SDT or SSDT Steal-Dump-Transport or Sell-Steal-Dump-Transport This method is a very lucrative method for evils to use. Most advanced players gain a big part of their income from this method later in the game. First thing you must have is 2 xxB ports which you will need to upgrade a specified amount. You also need at least 4,500 exp (5,000 is recommended) 1 planet in each of the port sectors (type and level of planet makes no difference*) and 2 COLTS* with 250 holds. As soon as you upgrade the ports you will need to start a Steal-Dump-Transport cycle.

The Loop looks like this: 4 turn cycle

1. Port at first xxB port with an empty COLT steal 250 holds of equ 2. Land on planet drop 250 holds of equ on planet (DROP) 3. Blast off and Transport to second COLT 4. Repeat until busted or ports are drained.

When port has no more product on docks you (or a corpie ready to start fresh) can sell the equ on the planet to the port and *presto* the port has all that equ sitting on the dock again and you can start all over. This method is more lucrative then SST and when you have the money to set this up I suggest you do (you should already have plenty of xxB ports in a safe bubble)

*This method can also be done with 1 COLT and 2 level 1 minimum planets with upgraded teleporters this cycle would be the same only that when you land on the planet you would enter the citadel and teleport to the next port. This works extremely well with multiple ports. It is VERY time consuming and it is best to have a macro or script to do this method (see Helpers) Also it isn’t a good idea to upgrade the port completely you normally won’t be able to steal all the product before busting, multiple ports of 10,000 units of equ work well for me, you should experiment with what level works best for you.

Buy-Dump-Transport (BDT) This is basic Planet trading only refined. Most evils forget the fact that its a good idea to buy product under certain circumstances. This method is extremely lucrative and it increases exp very rapidly. when used in conjunction with the MEGA-ROB this is a truly awesome way not only to make cash but also to gain ranking quickly. You will need at least 2 xxS ports and 2 xxB ports fully upgraded (32,000 units), 2 planets that are level 4 or higher (can be accomplished with a single planet), 2 colts with full holds (can be accomplished with a single ship) and 2 Havok Gunstars with 0 holds. You will also need start up cash for this method.

The loop looks like this: 260 turns (2 full ports)

1. Port at 1st xxS and buy 250 units equ 2. Land on planet dump product on planet 3. Repeat until port is dry 4. Transport to 2nd ship 5. Repeat steps 1-3 using 2nd xxS port 6. Warp planet 1 to xxB port and sell 32,000 equ 7. Warp planet 2 to xxB port and sell 32,000 equ

Now you can do 1 of 2 things you can position your Havok’s at the 2 xxS and start a RTR cycle, or you can let the cash accumulate and use a combination of RTR and MEGA ROB (see MEGA ROB). using the RTR method you will need as much experience as possible I suggest you not start this method until you have at least 15,000 experience points. Before you dismiss this method as to turn intensive look at the figures below, these of course are low end estimates your results will vary

BDT 260 turns = 516 experience points Cost of equ = 5,200,000 credits Selling price of equ = 7,680,000 Profit from BDT= 2,480,000 credits and 516 experience RTR (15,000 experience) 53 turns = 4500 experience (low estimate) Profit = 6,250,000 credits and 2080 experience points Total turns Used = 313 Total Profit = 8,730,000 credits and 5116 experience credits per turn = 27,891 experience per turn = 16

Compared to SST for 313 turns (assuming of course you can run 313 turns without busting) SST 313 turns = 2600 experience Profit = 3,650,000 credits credits per turn = 11,666 experience per turn = 8

As you can see this method is at least twice as good as SST for making both cash and experience (the fact that it is rather tough in 2.01a and later versions with the new bust code to run off 313 turns without a bust increases this argument) For those of you evils that have been passing off the draining of ports to your goods I think you should think twice. With the more experience you have the higher your profit margin will be.

MEGA-ROB This really isn’t any type of method only a tactic. When a port has over 5 million credits in it you can rob the entire amount with about the same amount of risk of busting as if you were using the exp*7=rob amount formula. Give it a try experiment with it see how it works for you.

A large part of playing is interacting with others in the game. You can mingle with other players in the Lost Traders Tavern, gambling against them, conversing with them, leaving announcements at the door or writing a message on the bathroom wall. You can combine your assets with other players of the same alignment to form a Corporation. Just be aware that more than one Corporation has been brought down by a con man who wormed his way into the Corporate structure. You can have a chance encounter with other creatures of the universe, both real (other users) and Non-Player Characters (the Federals, Alien traders and the Ferrengi). Chance encounters offer many possibilities and can advance you in your chosen career path. Your alignment and experience and the alignment and experience of the creature you encounter will determine just how that advancement if affected.

Other traders are users just like you. They have alignment and experience points. You can see all the others by Listing Traders from your ships computer. By using the listing, you can see which players are good and which are evil. You can estimate whether the other player would better serve your needs as an ally or adversary.

The Federation is the main governing body of the cosmos. You will meet the Feds if you go to the Police Station. You might run into them as you roam around space. The Feds don’t look kindly on players who break FedLaws, so if you’re not careful, they might visit you when you least want their company.

Alien traders are visitors from another universe who are looking for better ports. You can get a listing of the Aliens similar to the one you get for other traders. Aliens also have experience and alignment, but you cannot form a Corporation with them.

The Ferrengi are a greedy, cowardly group. Their primary purpose is the speedy acquisition of money. They will steal from anyone no matter what the person’s or corporation’s alignment. They seldom engage in face-to-face combat because they prefer the advantage of surprise when ambushing their opponent. They often travel in groups and will spy on promising territory. After targeting an area, they will raid the sector when it is least defended. If they are attacked, that group will hold a grudge against the attacker and they will not rest until they feel the score has been settled.

Explore the universe and take part in the adventure. You can just look around or you can become a dominant factor. Most of the displays are fully explained. When you are asked to make a selection, anything displayed in brackets [], will be the default.

Most displays can be aborted by hitting the space bar.

To see what players are in the game simply type (- then /#) or (just #) like this:

Command [TL=00:00:00]:[9] (?=Help)? : – G: /#

LINE USER-ID …… OPTION SELECTED 01 Monday … Trade Wars 2002 02 Ripclaw … Trade Wars 2002 03 Reza … Trade Wars 2002 04 Eleqtrizi’t … Trade Wars 2002 05 Gypsy … Trade Wars 2002 06 Black Slayer … Trade Wars 2002 07 AstroCreep … Trade Wars 2002 09 Destroyer … Trade Wars 2002 0A Hunter … Trade Wars 2002 0B Galactic Overlord … Trade Wars 2002 0C Maverick … Trade Wars 2002

Command [TL=00:00:00]:[9] (?=Help)? :

Please note that this is the players BBS user ID, their game ID may be different.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR (Information was reposted from the Old War Room by EleqTrizi’T of The Home Sector)

My name is Rick Mead better known as Gypsy in the Tradewars community. I have been playing Tradewars since the DOOR version 1.03d back in 1988 I have played numerous games both DOOR and MBBS. My first real taste of true interactive battle came about 5 years ago at Rippers BBS. This game was by far the largest I had ever been involved in (much different then the single node DOOR). I was new to the area and found Rippers when I was looking for a local dial up BBS with Telnet. I played for 2 years at Rippers as it went from a 10 line local BBS to a full blown 200 line ISP. I moved from Rippers to Stardock BBS and a number of other Telnet BBS’s, Millers Party Board, The Rock Garden, Keynet to name a few. I started Gypsy’s War Room in 1995 a website dedicated to the game. I became a student of the game at Stardock playing with people like Black Slayer, his wife Reza, Hosem, Monday and a few others I learned from them and traded what knowledge I had acquired. I am constantly adding to The War Room to try and make it the best website to find information about Tradewars on the web, some say I accomplished this I guess you will have to make your own opinion. I put this guide together because I believe the game is in a decline. I think that players are quitting as the mega-corps take over and more and more BBS’s are closing their doors. I would like to make it easy for new players to start so that Tradewars doesn’t vanish, perhaps this guide will help, I hope so.

Table of contents:
[PREFACE]
1: [So your really kind at heart?]
2: [Lets get busy.]
3: [The few, the proud, the Feds.]
4: [The trouble with bubbles.]
5: [The quick and the dead.]
6: [Advanced topics and lategame.]
7: [In conclusion.]

[PREFACE]
This is a bit of a guide, gives some strategy, and explains some ways to successfully play as a goodie goodie in Tradewars 2002. You can disagree with anything here, you might like doing things differently, and hell, ya might say it could be better. I understand this, I am not trying to make uber-goods, I am simply attempting to help the less fortunate grasp how to start, play, and be a successful good. This guide should lead you through the basics, and intermediate action, with a few advanced topics. It figures you have some knowledge of tradewars, and if you don’t, read something like tradewars for dummy’s or play the game a little while. In any case just remember, if you cant cut it on the good side, simply give the evil side a go (and you can read Exodius’s EVIL Guidebook to get you started). A bit of work, a bit of practice, and you’ll find your “nitch”, an attacker, a builder, a moneymaker, etc. As with the evil guide, this is a “passive” startup, and doesn’t involve being agressive on day 1. If you want to do something like this, then I’ll leave it up to you to come up with your own strategies for attacking.

1: [So your really kind at heart?]
Join the Federation! Join the collective cause! Fight evil ferringi and galactic piracy! Ask your local federation captain for more information on how to join the ranks.
Benefits of joining include,
1: You get to fly an ISS (typically the best ship by FAR)
2: You get exclusive rights to transwarp directly to fedspace
3: You get to fight the good fight, aiding the federation in the fight for the galaxy
4: You get to build personal planetary systems, including highly powerful quasars and credit making organics farms
5: You get to be blue instead of red
6: You get some federation protection while your young
7: You get a really sharp looking uniform
8: You get the use of the powerful photon torpedo with the purchase of an ISS
9: You get to trade products for profit
10: The ISS is a real chick magnet

2: [Lets get busy.]
Well, you’ve started out, soon you’ll be on your way to ruling your own personal galactic empire. But first, lets get you out of that merchant cruiser and into a more profitable early game trading ship, the merchant freighter. Of course, check your game’s ship specifications first, but usually a merchant freighter will be around 7% more efficent at flat out trading compared to the cruiser. As an added bonus, the freighter uses only 2 turns per warp in stock games, while the cruiser uses 3. This means you spend less turns actually moving from port pair to port pair. And if that isn’t good enough, through trading your cruiser for a freighter first thing, you will gain a few holds, and have enough cash left over from the trade to buy some fighters or shields, and a density scanner (which is VERY importaint).
Time to start trading, make yourself some cash, and get that merchant freighter decked out with holds, and a holoscanner, as well as some more defensive fighters or shields. Grab a few ether probes too, fire them to find new pair ports easier. You can decide yourself on haggling or not. It is suggested you don’t haggle, so as to stay under 1000 experience (and thus stay fedspace protected) for as long as possible. If you do haggle you’ll make a bit more profit, but will have to use a exp-loss technique to stay fedsafe. For instance allowing a evil friend to pod you a couple times. Or by guessing the password to the underground wrong several times (U in stardock, it’s a hidden area). Just remember, if you are using an exp-loss technique, deposit your cash first, or let a corp mate hold it (I believe in the underground if you guess wrong twice you get mugged and credits taken, 3 times you lose half your exp, 4 times you get murdered).

3: [The few, the proud, the Feds]
Well, by now you’ve traded down most or all of your turns and should have a sizeable sum of cash, in a loaded merchant freighter. It’s time for you to prepare for a federal comission. To do so, your going to need 500 good alignment. Theres several ways to go about getting this, but heres the fairly cost effective.
1: Cross pod with an evil. This would be basically starting with both of you around 1000 experience, you kill him once, he kills you once, you kill him a second time, he kills you a second time. This will make you decent good if he’s decently evil, and only costs a few fighters and a couple merchant freighters (all escape pod equipped ships only contain 2, so you’ll need 2 new freighters to safely do it, remember, scouts dont have pods). Also, remember you can only safely get podded twice in one day, third time is the “big sleep”. The downside to this is, it gets you over 1000 experience. Course you can always lower your exp using exp lowering techniques, and that makes this a good way of doing things. Also, it’ll leave you with most or all of the cash you made trading, for you to spend on an iss, holds, t-warp, etc.
2: Post rewards on evils. You can do this in the police station, 1 good alignment per 1,000 credits posted. Thus it’ll take 500,000 credits to make enough alignment to get comissioned. This is a lot more costly then crosspodding, but typically you cant crosspod, and this will not effect your experience.

Alone this will get you an iss on day 1 or day 2, depending on your success at trading and your choice of alignment gain. However, you should be in a corp, and in that case you can pool your collective cash to buy at least 1 ISS on day one, complete with full holds, a twarp drive, and a compliment of fighters, or alternatively, low fighters, saving the cash and starting a “bubble”. At this point you could try blockaiding stardock through the use of scripts, photon rain, etc, but I am explaining a passive startup, you can explore this option on your own.
Now that you have an ISS with full holds and a twarp drive (this is the main goal to attain), it’s time to move on, to planetary building, and bubble development.

4: [The trouble with bubbles.]
For those who don’t know, a “bubble” is, it’s several sectors connected together, with only 1 exit. For example, 3 sectors in a line, the one in back has 1 exit, to the second sector, the second sector only has 2 exits, to the very back, and to the front door. The front door has 2 exits, one to the middle room, and one, back out into space (IE, a sector with alot of exits etc). Some bubbles are bigger then others, and typically they aren’t in a straight line, instead branching off a bit behind the “front door” sector. You can find bubbles like this by luck (while you were trading) or through the use of a helper (typically using zero turn mapping, and a bubblefinder script). One thing to remember though, try not to pick the biggest bubble on your helper list. These will undoubtedly be probed alot by everyone who’s looking through bubbles. Just pick one a bit further down the list and your a “bit” safer. Maybe in the 4-6 or 7 room bubble range.
Inside a bubble like this, you place planets. Good planets to typically place, in stock games that is, would be L class, H class, and O class. Some games have edited planets, you might want to ask about them first. In any case, the L classes will be your first to hit level 3 (AKA quasar level) and become your early defence. The H classes will take longer to build, but will eventually be your BADASS defence planets. While the O class planets will become your cash-cow’s. They make 1 organics for every 2 colonists on the planet working organics. This means with a decent amount of colonists, these will produce tens of thousands of organics every day, making you millions of credits worth of profit. Typically you want 1 O class in every bubble sector (at least 1). And if possible, you want as many organics buying ports in there as possible (build them in bubble sectors that are empty).
Now, to start out your planets, start blowing em in a bubble sector, and IF POSSIBLE, do it in a bubble sector with a SBX port SBS being prefered. If you dont like what they give you, detonate it and make another (this will make some navhaz, but making another planet will clean that up). Typically you can only place 5 planets in a sector without “overloading” it (overloading a sector will cause 2 planets to collide at extern). Again, try to get an L class, H class, and O class to start out with. Ok, so you’ve got your planets up now, time to get some colonists in here. But first, your going to need the all importaint t-warp resource, FUEL! To start out we’ll want to haul some fuel onto the planet we plan on colonizing. Later on this will be easier, with the L or H class making the fuel at a decent rate of speed. So, port, buy a full load of fuel, dump on planet, rinse, repeat. Use a macro or something to do this 🙂 so you can quickly drain the few thousand fuel off the port. Ok, now the port is drained and your planet has about 2k fuel on it (give or take depending on how much was in the port). I suggest strongly that you start by colonizing the H class planet. It will make fuel very very fast, thus helping you colonize more and easier in the first couple days. Now, go into your ship computer and plot the course between your planet, and sector 1. Then, plot the course from sector 1, to your sector. Add these 2 distances together (for instance, 9 hops to sector 1, 9 hops back, making 18 total hops). It takes 3 holds of fuel for every hop you travel with the transwarp drive. This means you need to take total distance * 3. So, in our example it would be 18*3=54. So, you will need 54 fuel to make a round trip flight. Grab 54 fuel, fly to sector 1 with the twarp, land, grab colonists off terra, fly back to your bubble by t-warp, dump colonists, grab 54 fuel, repeat. This will go much faster with a script or macro, and also helps if you turn off ansi cinematics. Quickly you’ll have drained your planet of fuel and stuck quite a few colonists on it. If you are working with a corp, SHARE the ISS you have with the others, help them get comissions to aid in colonist hauling, and in loading fuel etc. Now, start the planet building a citadel. For an H class I believe this takes about 1800 colonist units, and a good chunk of equipment, fuel, and organics. Try to get it started, then move enough colonists to the L class, as well as enough fuel/equipment/organics to get it started too. Then put all the colonists back on the H class. They don’t have to stay on a planet to finish a citadel, and they’ll make more fuel on the H class for more colonizing. You dont really have to start a citadel on the O class if you dont want to right away, it’s a bit helpful to have L4 O classes later on, but for now it’s no biggie.
Congratulations, your well on your way to becoming a galactic powerhouse.

5: [The quick and the dead.]
Well, now your bubble is started off, and of course, your going to want to keep it alive. You invest alot of time in populating it, alot of cash in upgrading it, and have probably started to upgrade organics buying ports, getting them ready to start selling loads of organics any day now. In any case, heres a few thoughts on early defence.
Early on, your bubble is very vournerable. Pretty much everything can be photon’ed and disabled, making any potential early quasars rather ineffectual. Sector fighters will also be rendered useless. And you can’t defend level 0-1 planets with figs (they have to be level 2 before fighters on the planet will defend, below level 2, and the enemy can simply land and take the fighters for himself). Your best bets for survival through this crucial stage are as follows,
1: HUNT FOR EVILS! Use grimy trader, track them down, kill them ruthlessly. Left alone evils will very very quickly make the cash to search the universe, find your sector, and to overtake it in it’s infancy. Or alternatively they will make their cash, hand it over to their mega-corp teammates (goods) and let THEM find and take out your sector. In any case, evils will have the resources available to take down basically any young sector, kill them off as much as possible, and you in turn protect yourself.
2: CHANGE YOUR SHIP NAME REGULARLY! Since you will be porting in ports inside your bubble occasionally with your iss, change your ship name every chance you get. Otherwise, people will simply use the grimy trader on you and be given an exact location. On the same note, if you are going to sleep overnight in a ship OTHER then the iss (IE, to let others use the ISS) make sure NOT to port in any ports, in the ship you sleep in. So if you get a tholian to sleep in or something, simply bring it in, and never port it, then your safe from grimy for as long as your inside it.
3: Keep an eye out for other goodie bases. Just as your bubble is vournerable, so is theirs. And if you have an evil working for you, it is even easier to overtake.
4: You can try out tholian sentinels. They do work in current versions of TW. Long as you are inside one, in a sector with corporate planets, it’ll take a decent amount of power to kill. This wont save you from well funded iss users, but it should be enough to keep some people away if they do find your area.
5: Always check for limpits before flying your iss home. It only takes a few seconds to make a quick t-warp stop at SD before t-warping home, it might save your life. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve seen moronically drag limpits home. Even worse, they all deny they did it. Don’t let this happen to you, port at SD regularly.

6: [Advanced topics and lategame.]
Well, now your making cash, organics farming many oceanic planets, have fighters coming out your ears, and a very good home sector defence. So, what do you do? Kill everyone of course. This is the point in time when you go out and kill everyone in your power. Take out enemy bases, kill those evils, try to get your alignment up (through killing of evils) enough to kill goods without problems. Play your cards right and you (and your corp) will be competetive, or even winning. In any case, you should be fairly ruthless at this point, kill first, answer the stupid whiners later.
Another little topic would be further advanced bubble defences. Usually you move your larger bruiser planets (and any others you take) to your front sector or two. Obviously you can only have 5 to a room, but a couple L5 H classes and a few L class’s (which would be level 5-6 at this time) makes for a fairly killer front end. Just remember to shield them well, to keep them protected from photons. Also, turn the first planet in the room (the lowest planet number in the room) to a LOW sector cannon. Depening on the amount of fuel present on the planet, 1-7% should be acceptable. Basically your trying to make the first planet that fires, fire a small shot of 1k damage through 2k damage, to kill small ships. Set the second cannon for around a 4k-10k shot, and the rest as you like (though usually your trying to do enough damage to pod a decked ISS). This will prevent “mothing” a technique used to drain enemy planets of fuel to make them easier to kill. People do this by flying small “cheap” ships into the room, to take quasar hits. If you set all your planets real high on the sector, people are simply going to fly in and blow hundreds of thousands of your fuel for the cost of a few merchant freighters. And remember, set atmosphere shots high enough to blast anything that attempts to land. Considering the sector shots damage, this should only have to be 20k damage through 40k damage (depends on ship edits, plus now and then people will try hitting you with a decked intradictor, 100k figs). Also, don’t turn on military reaction on the planet. This will cause wasteful use of fighters on the planet offensively, which will only get 1.0 offensive odds. Compared to letting them stay on the planet and defend at 2.0 odds, making it twice as effective to let them defend. Besides, if your quasars are set right on those level 5+’s you shouldn’t have to worry about much of a ship surviving the blasts.
One more thing to mention about planets, though known to most people, is planets have maximums on their colonists production rates. For instance, on unedited L class planets, you can put 20k colonists on fuel ore production “maximum”. Any higher and it actually begins to LOSE fuel ore production capacity. Just play around with the pop numbers and find the max’s on your particular game, to maximize effectiveness of your production.

Table of contents:
[PREFACE]
1: [So you want to be an evil?]
2: [In the beginning.]
3: [Movin on up.]
4: [The joys of stealing.]
5: [Stayin Alive, Stayin Alive.]
6: [Cruel and Unusual Punishment.]

[PREFACE]
This is a bit of a guide, gives some strategy, and explains some ways to successfully play as an evil in Tradewars 2002. You might disagree, you might have better ideas, hell, you might have a better startup. But then again, so do I ;p. I just decided I’d throw up a basic startup to help out the people who are sick of playing a goodie, or newer players who can’t seem to get an evil character running. It figures you have some knowledge of tradewars, and if you don’t, read something like tradewars for dummy’s or play the game a little while. I’m also not including exact instructions on blocking SD and creating scripts. These are things you can find elsewhere, and can come up with yourself if thats what floats yer boat. In any case good luck with you, and if you can’t handle the pressures of being evil, you can simply read my GOOD guidebook, which I’ll be throwing together soon.

1: [So you want to be an evil?]
Hey, we all know how easy it is to be a little pansy goodie goodie. Hiding in fedspace under 1000 exp, being nice, defending things, colonizing (vomit).

I’ve gotta say I’m glad to hear you want turn to the dark side, just think of all the perks.
1: You get to jettison colonists all you want!
2: You get to fly typically insuperior ships!
3: You get hunted by every goodie, evil guy, and grandmother!
4: You get to refurbish your holds non-stop and feel the joys of busting!
5: You get to blow alot of planets up!
6: You get to enjoy never being completely safe, ever!
7: You get to be red instead of that wimpy looking blue color!
8: You get to sit around instead of colonizing and upgrading planets!
9: You get to steal stuff!
10: Oh yeah, you make lots of credits too!

Still here?
Well, I’m glad to see your not easily scared off, the prospects of being an evil are quite, grim, but the benefits can outweigh that. I must say either your quite brave or very stupid, but I’ll help you out anyway for sticking around.

2: [In the beginning.]
Lets face it, usually the ship you start in deserves to be scrap metal. Always check the specs, but in a stock game it’ll have a 3 turn per warp engine, and only 75 holds max. Even worse, in most games you start out with 300 credits. I mean c’mon, you couldn’t buy toothpaste with 300 credits.
Well, typically theres a simple solution, the Merchant Freighter. At 2 turns per warp with 65 holds max, this ship is a bit more efficent then the cruiser at trading. Plus, at 2 turns per warp it is much less costly moving around actually finding trading ports. If your in early enough, hell with it, trade that piece of crap cruiser in first thing, get yourself a freighter with the cash from the trade. Now you’ll have gained a few holds, and have enough cash for a few fighters or shields, and a density scanner (ahem, IMPORTAINT, always get a density scanner early). This is all banking on you being able to successfully get to the stardock. Easier said then done, but with advanced stardock blocking techniques out there today, most TW sysops are placing the dock next to fedspace to make things easier. There are still potential problems with this, but with any luck you’ll be in a merchant freighter and trading away in no time.
Remember, this ship is just to get you started. Deck her out with holds, fire a few e-probes to find good pair port areas, and make some cash/exp (you have to be haggling here, exp will soon turn into big money, use a script or helper if possible). Also, while trading lay down fighters here and there when you find XXB ports fairly clustered in an area, and put 1 down at every pair port you trade down.
Another thing to know is this is a Passive Startup. It will get you decent cash and exp, but it’s not made to be agressive on day 1. I consider agressive startup’s (stardock blocking, mass killing, hunting, spending early cash on figs) as more advanced tatics that you should dig into yourself.

3: [Movin on up.]
Well, now you have probably played down most or all of day 1, have some decent cash, and somewhere around 1k exp (give or take, depends on turns, port density, and the amount of traders out there). Time to go evil, jettison a load of colonists and if your not -100 yet go post a reward or two in the underground until you are.
This is a critical point. You can do a few different things here.
1: Buy a decent fighting ship, load it up with some figs, and do a little killing. Good ships for this type of play on day 1-2 are typically things like a havoc gunstar, a starmaster, a constellation (check ship specs for a decent attack odds ship with 3 turns per warp or so, transwarp drive is a plus). Alternatively you could buy a missile frigate and try photon rain from SD in a form of SD block strategy.
2: Buy a t-warp capable ship, and get a couple SST ships to tow around. Start SST’ing (steal sell transport for those who don’t know). Obviously this is alot better if you can get your hands on a corporate flagship. In any case check your settings, in some games there are decent t-warp ships available to the non-ceo evil for you to use. If possible get a ship with over 80 holds and a t-warp, if it’s a stock game and your not a ceo, settle with a havoc.

If you picked fighting, well, I think you can handle that on your own. However, if you decided to sst at this point then lets move on 🙂

4: [The joys of stealing.]
Well, now you have a tow-ship (with t-warp type 2 installed, and a load of holds for fuel). Hopefully your carrying 2k+ exp, and have a couple decent SST ships. Typically they are either mules (150 holds max) or colonial transports (typically called colts, which have 250 holds max). It’s time to start sst’ing.
First off, find a decent area with XXB ports. If you laid down figs while trading earlier, this should be no problem at all. T-warp tow in your sst ships into 2 sepperate XXB port sectors. Now, upgrade the ports a little bit. 1 upgrade of equipment units = 10 equipment on dock in the port. Thus, if you are stealing around 100 holds of equipment, upgrade the port 11 or 12 (this way, theres a bit extra in the port so you can keep stealing without having to worry about your equipment amount on dock going down below 100).
Now you decide how much your going to SST. This is fairly easy to calculate, but might take a few tries before you can figure out the best setting for the particular game. Typical calculations are holds*20=exp required, up to holds*30=exp required. Skimp too much and you’ll get busted alot, go too high and you’ll be making alot less then you potentially can.
Now, start the cycle, port, steal X holds of equipment (X being however much you can according to your exp) port, sell equipment, haggle for exp. Transport to other ship, port, steal equipment, port, sell equipment, transport.
Never steal from the same port twice in a row or you will be busted. And once you’ve busted at a port, try not to port or steal there again for a good while. Just move the busted ship to another XXB port, upgrade the port, and start again.
Now your making cash, busting occasionally, and sst’ing. Sounds like the perfect time to go over what you need to do to stay a successful evil.

First off, PLANET BUST. Spend most of your early cash making planets, and blowing em up. This will make you 75 exp for every 35k or so and costs very very few turns. You have to do this alot, but this will help you get your exp up higher and higher, with the intent to get high enough to successfully steal 250 holds regularly.
A second little trick is refurbing with merchant freighters. Basically, you buy a merchant freighter, deck it with holds, and kill it with the colt you busted in. This will fill your holds back up a bit. This is usually best when your dealing with 250 holds, as it is considerably cheaper to spend 45k or so on a decked merchant freighter to fill up the holds you lose when you bust at 250 then to drag the colt back and manually buy them (those 20 some odd holds are VERY expensive). In other words, early on it might be cheaper to fill your colts manually, but once you get up in the 200 hold range, it’s best to get your holds off salvage. Just remember, attack the merchant freighter with 1 fighter, you’ll blow it up for 20 some holds.
Later on you can use advanced moneymaking techniques. These ususally require alot of experience, and include:
Rob transport Rob (a 4 turn cycle used when ports don’t have enough credits to mega-rob, this can make a “lot” of cash using exp*3=credits through exp*10=credits depending on the game, your exp, and how hard the ratio is set).
Steal Dump Transport (a 4 turn cycle where you load a port with equipment, steal, dump it on the planet, transport, steal, dump, transport, it requires 2 planets and some startup cash but is considerably more profitable then sst’ing, when done ya simply sell back the equipment from the planet to the port using a planetary trade).
Buy Dump, MEGAROB (This is where you load a port up to sell alot of equipment, buy it all down using a overprice buy script, IE buying for about 30-35% more then their asking for, filling the port with over 3.4 million credits, then robbing all your cash back with 1 megarob, course then you move your planet to an upgraded equipment buying port and sell it all back, takes VERY few turns and turns HUGE profit with extremely little chance of busting).

5: [Stayin Alive, Stayin Alive.]
Now your doing well, stealing up a storm, probably have 5k+ exp and are stealing a good amount of holds (up to 250 depending on how hard the busts are in your particular game). Your making cash out the ass, and theres only one problem. Just about everyone wants you dead. Their not stupid 🙂 your like an ATM, kill you and they can steal your cash, sell your colts, and in general make a whole lot of credits. Even better, your forced to use a big huge piece of crap ship for sst’ing in. A colt wont last 2 seconds vs just about anything. As if that isn’t bad enough, your typically sitting at the same set of ports for an extended period of time to make cash. This makes you EXTREMELY vournerable to the grimy trader :(.
Your best bet at staying alive early on, is to lay fighters literally everywhere you go. All over the place, 1 fighter here, 1 fighter there. Try to make sure that if anyone tries to come at you, you’ll have plenty of advance warning. At the first sign of a fig hit, jump back into your bigger “fighting ship/tow ship” and either run like hell, or go kick some ass. If you’ve played your cards right you should have a good amount of fighters, and a decent amount of exp. This should put you at least competetive in a fight with pretty much anyone. Of course however corps can put up a good amount of figs for a “designated fighter”. So in any case if you see someone decent coming, you might want to get the hell out of there.
And speaking of corps, you should definately be in one. Either get a few evils together for a corp, or try to get some evils/goods (IE a split or “mega corp”). If you do have goodies as part of your split corp, feed them well. They will typically (unless the game is heavily edited) have FAR superior ships, and the capability to build. In other words, you supply them the cash, and they’ll help kill off the competition, while building up some nice planets. Later on they can give you a few level 4+ planets, and you can use these to start up advanced cash making, like loading ports with cash to megarob, and steal dump transport (although you can do steal dump transport with planets of any level really, it just takes some setup to turn a profit).

6: [Cruel and Unusual Punishment.]
Well, now you know how to be an evil, you’ve got the ships, got the money, got the fighters. Thats all fine and dandy, but hey, have you been killing the competition? Lets face it, the easiest targets for you to kill, and undoubtedly the most profitable for the cost of locating and killing, are other evils. Don’t just sit around and let them make cash to fuel badass goodies of their split corp, be agressive, put those fighters to use. Head over the the grimy, have him start tracing em, get a recent hit (as in, he ported somewhere TODAY) and go slaughter their ass. Try not to trip fighters as you head in, you might have to walk a long route to find a quiet way in. Kick some ass, take some names. If you can manage to nail his pod as well, then look around a bit. Undoubtedly his tow-fight ship will be nearby (typically a corporate flag), and unmanned the fighters defending it will die VERY easily. So hell with it, kill that ship 🙂 it’ll cost you alot less to kill it then it’ll cost him to replace.
Also be constantly on the lookout for early goodie bases, you may be able to take them over yourself early, or just supply a goodie in your split-group and have him do it. With a good iss using friend, you should be able to easily take out most any early game base, even easier if you can get a few evils working with you.