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.