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────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── [ Tradewars Discussion Sub ] Title....... The 04/01/95 TWv2ß5 FAQ Name........ Night Owl #235 @5423 Date........ Sat Apr 01 15:59:28 1995 From........ WWIVNet - Paronomasia [919-233-1035] Location.... Greenville/Raleigh, North Carolina ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── THE TW2002v2 FAQ Sheet By Night Owl #235 @5423 STATEMENT OF OWNERSHIP ====================== With the exception of the Major Space Lane diagram which was drawn by Albin Gersich, the ship capture text written by Mike Magero and the TWv2ß5 bug list written by John Warfin & Mike Magero this entire text was written by Night Owl #235 @5423 and he retains full ownership of the text. Readers are allowed to distribute this text to others as they see fit as long as they do NOT alter the contents in ANY way and do NOT charge money for it. The author put quite a bit of work into this text and feels that it's only fair that he receive the proper credit and since he's not making any profit from it no one else should either. DISCLAIMER ========== This FAQ applies to the regular TWv2bx door game *only* because the MBBS version differs in many ways and since the author of this FAQ doesn't have access to a MBBS TW game he can't adequately document these differences. TABLE OF CONTENTS ================= 1. Beta 6 Release Date (Sometime Before 2002, We Hope...) 2. The Infamous "Computer Upgrade" 3. The Infamous "Secret Message In Vulcan Thunder" 4. Secret Buildings On StarDock 5. Underground Access Rules 6. Obtaining Underground Password 7. Getting Murdered On StarDock 8. Players Getting Murdered On StarDock Deliberately 9. T-warping Planets Into FedSpace (Not Possible...) 10. Attacking Feds (And Dying *Real* Quick...) 11. Evil ISS Potential (Or The Lack Of It...) 12. Tholian Sentinel Fixed 13. The Ship Records Bug 14. Destroying StarDock 15. New Player Planets 16. Getting A Fed Commission The EZ-Way 17. FedSpace Protection Rules 18. Reasons For Being Towed From FedSpace 19. Getting Busted For Trying To Rob The Same Port Twice 20. Evil Earning Technique (SST) 21. Explanation Of Major Space Lanes 22. Effects Of Major Space Lanes 23. Sector Fighter Combat Odds 24. Explanation Of The Planetary Military Reaction Level 25. Explanation Of The Planetary Quasar Cannon Settings 26. The Planetary Shield System's Effect On P-torps (None Whatsoever...) [Hit Me When You're Ready! 27. P-wave Effects 28. Accidental P-torp Detonation 29. Accidental Atomic Detonator/Corbomite Denotation (Game Docs Correction...) 30. "How To Capture Ships" By Mike Magero 31. TWv2ß5 Bug List By Mike Magero/John Warfin 32. Complete Ferrengi Ship Stats THE FAQ! ======== 1. Q: When will Beta 6 be released? A: No one, probably not even Martin, knows the release date but rest assured that once it's released you will read about it on here. 2. Q: The Grimy Trader mentioned a "Computer Upgrade", does it really exist? A: No, there is no "Upgrade" in the game. 3. Q: What about the secret message in the Vulcan Thunder movie? A: It doesn't exist either. You really should take everything ol' Grimy says with a grain of salt. 4. Q: Are there any secret buildings on StarDock? A: Yes, there are 3 unlisted buildings there. Hit a plus sign to enter the Library and you can look at ANSIs of *non existing* Alien Derelicts and existing Ferrengi Craft. Hit <B> to find the Singles Bar but *don't* go in because you'll get robbed. Finally hit <U> to access the Underground where you can post bounties on other players and change your game alias. 5. Q: Why can't I get into the Underground? A: If the guard tells you to get lost because they don't won't your kind around then you've got too much positive alignment. The max alignment you can have and still get in is 199. If that isn't the problem then you obviously don't know the password... 6. Q: How do I get the password? A: I was wondering when you were gonna ask me that! <g> Go ask Grimy about MAFIA and he'll ask if you want the password so tell him yes! After you slide a few creds his way he'll give it to you. (Note: The default password in v1.03(d) was "BEWARE THE JAWS THAT BITE!" and in v2 it's "BEWARE OF KAL DURAK".) 7. Q: I saw on the Daily Log that some loser got murdered on StarDock. How did they manage that? A: They ticked off the guard at the Underground one time too many and he fried 'em. Seriously, if you enter the wrong password in the Underground 6 times the guard really does kill ya. 8. Q: Why would anyone do that on purpose? A: Due to the way alignment changes are factored when attacking stuff it's possible for a Good player to accidentally turn Evil while attacking a rival Good's assets. In v2b1 - v2b4 this is easily fixed by heading over to StarDock and posting a bounty on some Evil guy to raise your alignment back to Good but in v2b5 Evil players can't enter the Police HQ. (Yet another of Martin's oh-so-brilliant ideas...) Anyway, since getting murdered on StarDock causes your experience and alignment to be reset to 0 some players have no choice but to do this if they want to start playing Good again... 9. Q: Can you T-warp a planet into FedSpace? A: No, planets can not be T-warped into FedSpace, not even by Fed Commissioned players who can T-warp their ships there. 10. Q: Can you kill the Feds? A: NO! They're "hard coded" into the game and can't be damaged. 11. Q: Can Evil players use the ISS in v2? A: No, Martin has made the EISS a thing of the past by making the Feds destroy 'em as soon as they turn Evil. 12. Q: Does the Tholian Sentinel work in v2? A: Yes, a Sentinel really does get 4:1 odds when a player logs off in it and there doesn't even have to be a planet in the sector. 13. Q: Why do I: a. keep losing ships? b. find myself in the wrong ship when I join the game? c. keep seeing "phantom" ships with -1 fighters? d. see another player in a ship *completely* identical to mine? e. experience any other odd stuff related to the ships? A: There's a very nasty little critter called the ship records bug that causes all this and more to happen. While no one, probably not even Martin, knows exactly what causes this bug the most recent theory is that it's somehow related to players capturing other ships since games in which a lot of ship capturing is going on tend to be more affected by this bug than other games. 14. Q: Can I destroy StarDock? A: In v1.03(d) the answer was yes, all you needed was a Scout with 32,767 fighters and 32,767 shields. (Yes, a bug was needed to put 'em on the Scout.) However, in v2 the situation is a bit more complex because there have been 5 different Betas and they behave differently. In v2b1 - v2b4 all you need is a maxxed IC to kill StarDock but according to README.WB5 (a text file included with the game that details the modifications made) in v2b5 StarDock was made unkillable due to player whining. 15. Q: I was given a planet when I joined the game. Should I try to build it up? A: Most of the time those new player planets are a *complete* waste of time and, IMHO, should be stripped of product and destroyed for a quick 50 exp. However, if you were lucky enough to have your planet placed in a dead-end sector then you *might* want to keep it. Frankly it just depends on your personal preferences and playing style... 16. Q: What's the best way to get the 500 alignment necessary for a Fed Commission? A: Paired port trade until you get 500,000 creds then post it on some little Evil guy. (So you can kill him and get your creds back.) That will raise your alignment by 500 points and you'll be in business. (In case you can't figure it out each 1,000 creds posted raises your alignment by 1 point.) 17. Q: What are the conditions a player must meet in order to receive FedSpace protection? A: A player must have apositive alignment and 999 or less experience points in order to receive FedSpace protection. 18. Q: What causes a player to be towed from FedSpace? A: If a player violates the Limited Arms Agreement by having more than 100 fighters onboard their ship the Feds will tow them out when Extern runs. Also, each FedSpace sector only allows a certain number of players to stay there so if the number of players in a given FedSpace sector exceeds that number one of the players will be towed out. (Check the <V> screen to see how many players can remain in each FedSpace sector in your game). One last thing, the Feds *can* tow you out even if you're cloaked so don't be surprised if that happens. 19. Q: Why do I get busted when I try to rob from the same port twice? A: Martin considered the trade/steal/loop in v1.03(d) to be a bug so in v2 players can't rob from the same port twice in a row without being busted. However, you can go rob another port then head back to the original port and rob it again. 20. Q: How are Evil players suppose to make any creds then? A: They use a technique called sell/steal/transport. It requires the player to place 2 ships (with equipment already onboard) at equipment buying ports within transporter range of each other and then they just sell/steal/transportback & forth between ships. 21. Q: What exactly are the Major Space Lanes? A: They're the sectors in the paths between Sol/SD, SD/Rylos, SD/Alpha and Rylos/Alpha. Here's a diagram from the TWAssist docs that'll make this easier to visualize: (I hope Albin won't mind my using it...) ┌─────────┐ │ 1 │ ┌────────────────┐ │ Sol ├────────┤ Stargate Alpha ├───────────────────┐ │ Class 0 ├────────┤ Stardock ├────────────────┐ │ └─────────┘ └──────┬──┬──────┘ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ ┌──────┴──┴──────┐ ┌─────┴──┴───────┐ │ Alpha Centauri ├──────────┤ Rylos │ │ Class 0 ├──────────┤ Class 0 │ └────────────────┘ └────────────────┘ 22. Q: What exactly happens to assets left in the MSLs? A: Sector fighters, Armid Mines and Limpet Mines are all destroyed when Extern runs. Planets with a Level 3 or greater Citadel will be busted down to L2 as well. 23. Q: What are the Combat Odds for sector Offensive, Defensive and Toll fighters? A: All sector fighters get 1:1 odds. 24. Q: I just got my planet up to L2. What exactly does the Military Reaction Level do and what should it be set at? A: The MRL determines the percentage of planetary fighters that will be launched when an invader tries to land. (Planetary Offensive fighters get 2:1 odds.) The remainder of the fighters will just sit there defending the planet and the invader will have to destroy *all* of them before he can land. (Planetary Defensive fighters get 3:1 odds.) Once you put some thought into this you will see that the most logical MRL setting is 0% because the defensive fighters get better odds and the offensive fighters could end up killing nothing but the invader's shields... 25. Q: Okay, my planet just hit L3. How are the Q-cannon percentages calculated? A: The Sector setting determines how much fuel ore will be used for each sector blast and the sector blast works on a 3:1 ratio. IOW, for every 3 units of fuel ore used the invader takes 1 Battle Point of damage. (1 Battle Point is equal to 1 fighter or shield and the ship's Combat Odds do not apply.) So if you have 100,000 units of fuel ore and the Q-cannon is set to 100% Sector an intruder will take 33,333 Battle Points of damage when they enter the sector and the planet will have 0 units of fuel left. The Atmospheric setting determines how much fuel ore will be used for each Atmospheric blast and the Atmospheric blast works on a 1:2 ratio. IOW, each unit of fuel ore used does 2 Battle Points of damage and the amount of fuel actually used is only half of what you have the Q-cannon set to. For example, say you have a planet with 100,000 units of fuel ore and the Q-cannon is set to 100% Atmospheric. When an invader tries to land they'll take 100,000 Battle Points of damage and you'll still have 50,000 units of fuel ore left. 26. Q: I heard that the Planetary Shield System protects a planet from P-torps, is this true? A: No it's not. Contrary to what the docs say the PSS does not block the effects of the P-torp. 27. Q: What exactly does will a P-wave do? A: It will cause any uncloaked players in the sector (and on planets too due to a bug) to lose their turns for the day; it disables Armid Mines and sector fighters (Limpets do not appear to be affected); it resets the Planetary MRL to0% and disables the Q-cannon & Interdictor Generator. It does *not* affect ports in any way. 28. Q: I had a P-torp accidentally go off while onboard my ship! What caused this? A: Any damage, no matter how insignificant will cause a P-torp to accidentally go off. Also, I would be remiss if I didn't tell you that you should *only* carry P-torps when you have an *immediate* use for them because given their inherent instability it's just foolish to fly around with 'em all the time. 29. Q: Will Corbomite or Atomic Detonators accidentally go off while onboard my ship too? A: No, contrary to the docs they won't. 30. Q: How do I capture ships? A: Mike Magero (from FIDOnet) wrote a very detailed message explaining this. Here's his message: =============================================================================== Message #822 "TradeWars" Date: 24-Jun-94 12:49 From: Mike Magero [Hit Me When You're Ready! To: All New Players Subj: Ship Capture Attacking ships for the joy of capturing them is not profitable in the long run you have to consider the cost in fighters and turns wasted. I doubt that you will find any "expert" players out capturing ships... They can be bought at Stardock alot cheaper then capturing them. Never the less it's not "All" random. When you attack another ship you must first see if it's manned or unmanned. An unmanned ships fights at 1/2 the combat odds. The next step after determining the other ships combat odds is its shields. Since only a few ships have a combat computer you won't always know how many they have. That's not a real problem because the shields will be the first to go when you do start attacking. Lets look at this little example I made up that shows you how to figure out the necessary fighters to capture a ship. Your tooling along in your Constellation its maxed out and your looking for a fight. Low and behold Jobo Frengit pops into view in his CT! Your going to get this guy! Ok you give chase and the battles on! Jobo's Ct is not maxed out (most aliens aren't) so you don't really have any idea what his shields count is. For this example lets say Jobo has 100 shields and full fighters. That's 200 fighters and 100 shields. CT's get .6 to 1 odds so, Jobo really only has 120 fighters. You can determine this by doing a little math 200 x .6 = 120 You still can't tell what effect the shields will have so don't waste time considering it just yet. Your Constellation gets 1.4 to 1 odds and if you hit him with 120 fighters your going to really hit him with 168. You can again calculate this by doing some math 120 x 1.4 = 168. The number of shields on your ship don't matter and you don't know how many are on the other ship. You must assume that there are no shields on the other ship or you risk blowing it into space dust. Your out to capture it so you need to attack with just enough fighters to get the other guy out of his ship and into a Pod. So we need some more math here, we need to do 120 damage points to the other ship so... lets see here 120 / 1.4 = 85.7 We can't attack with a fraction of a fighter so I suggest rounding down to remain on the safe side of the battle equation that's 85 fighters Yep. That's the ticket. You hit Jobo with 85 fighters. He runs to the next sector and you chase him down. Jobo's ship still has fighters on it... Why? He lost shields.. You have to expect that. Lets look in on Jobo's ship after you attacked him. Jobo had 100 shields [Hit Me When You're Ready! and 200 fighters at .6 oddsthat a total of 120 fighters and 60 shields when the odds are figured in. Jobo's ship now has no shields and should only have 141 or so fighters on it. Remember you hit him with 119 points worth of damage ( 85 fighters and 1.4 odds = 119 ) Ok its time to try it again. You see 141 fighters Jobo didn't loose as many as you thought he would. But he did lose some so that means he's out of shields. You now want to kill off just enough fighters to put him in a pod... More math again.. 140 x .6 = 84 This is Jobo's real fighter strength. You need to kill them off so you do 84 / 1.4 = 60 The game tosses in a random factor in combat so 60 is what the math says you need. I would go with 58 or 59 just to be on the safe side and hope it worked. If the Gods of war were on your side (Random Combat Modifiers) you will put Jobo in a pod and the ship is yours. If not, oh well, you did the best you could possible do to remove the randomness from the battle. Better luck next time. Three of the ships you can buy at Stardock have Combat Computers that will allow you to determine the number of shields your enemy has on his ship. These ships are the Battleship, Missile Frigate and the Corp. Flag. Lets Resurect Jobo again and have at him this time with a Battleship. We will see if we can get him on the first attack. Remember what Jobo's Ct looks like? Jobo has 200 Fighters at .6 odds and only 100 shields at .6 odds. Of course we don't know that yet but lets see what happens when you move into the sector with him and hit the <A>ttack key. You get a message telling you that Jobo's ship has 20 percent shields rating. Yep! That makes sense we know he only has 100 shields in this example and a Ct can have 500 shields so that fits. Ok we do the same math as above to find Jobo's real fighter strength 200 x .6 = 120 Now we need to find his real shield strength we can use math again to get the answer. Lets do this first 500 x .20 = 100 What we did here was take the max number of shields his ship can have and multiplied it by 20 percent that told us Jobo's ship has 100 shields. Now we need to find his real shield strength so we do this 100 x .6 = 60 That's his shields times his ships combat odds = real shields. We now add the 120 + 60 together and get 180 real damage points. So if we hit Jobo with 180 points of damage we should capture his ship... Our ship has 1.6-1 combat odds so we need to do the same math we did before to find out just how many fighters we are going to need to use. We do this 180 / 1.6 = 112.5 Again we can't attack with a fraction of a fighter so we round down. I suggest 110 to allow for the random factors of the combat calculation the game tosses in. With luck you will be the proud owner of a 1 owner Colonial Transport. If it blows up in your face.... Oh well at least your tried your best and were just unlucky. That's War! [Hit Me When You're Ready! So the Formulas for ship capture you need to know are as follows: Enemy Fighters x Enemy Ships Combat Odds = Real Fighter Strength Real Fighter Strength / Your Ships Combat Odds = # of Fighters to Use. If you have combat computers on your ship you need to know the following: Max Shields for Enemy Ship x Percentage Reported = Shields on Enemy Ship Enemy Shields x Enemy Ships Combat Odds = Real Shield Strength Real Fighter Strength + Real Shield Strength = Enemy's Real Defenses Enemy's Real Defenses / Your ships combat odds = # of Fighters to Use I know that not all of you may have learned about percentages yet so here is a simple way to deal with them. If the combat computer says 45 Percent use .45 if it says 30 percent use .30 Note the decimal points are placed before the number. It's important you do that or your math will not be correct. If your already doing 2nd year Calc stop reading this and stop wasting your time attackingaliens. Your smart enough to know the cost factors involved and can easily calculate the loss in credits your facing by attacking aliens. Sure...Buying them is not as much fun but it is alot cheaper! =============================================================================== 31. Q: I've heard that there are <GASP!> bugs in v2ß5, do ya have a list? A: Certainly! The following list was posted by Mike Magero (John Warfin originally wrote the text) on the FIDOnet TW echo a while back: =============================================================================== Message #819 "TradeWars" Date: 24-Jun-94 12:42 From: Mike Magero To: All Subj: The "Feature" list Here is John Warfin's "feature" list I have added numbers 31-34 on to it myself if you have any other bugs that are not on this list please send them up to the echo for inclusion on this list. And NO I DO NOT know what # 13 is! So don't even ask John won't tell me. 1. The dissapearing ships bug has got to be fixed. 2. Shields should protect the Q-Cannon from a P-torp wave. 3. A player parked in the citadel should not have turns deducted when the planet is P-torped. 4. A player parked in a citadel should not be vulnerable to attack from someone in the sector. 5. You should not be able to attack yourself! 6. Ports should not "roll over" into negative quantities 7. The defensive rating of a port should not "roll over" to a negative amount. 1 fighter should not be allowed to blow up a port! 8. Ships should not be safe when left in Fedspace. 9. Planets should not be able to hold 1,000,000 fighters a more reasonable amount should be determined. 10. A sector should not be allowed to hold 2,000,000,000 fighters! 11. The use of teleporters and planetary transporters to cut turns off of trading and stealing loops should be addressed. 12. The escape pod should be fully taken away from the scout or it should be restored. (No more 1/2 non-bug fixxes are necessary.) 14. The ability to overload a sector with G-torps should be removed. 15. The Ferrengi's resistance to the mine's destructive power should be cured. A ferrengi with 1 fighter and 1 shield should not withstand 125 mines detonating! 16. The ability to tow a ship through a Planetary transporter should be removed. 17. A single player on a corp should not be penalized for "consorting with slime." 18. All ships in a sector should list when a trader enters. if they didn't pay for a cloak why give them one for free. 19. The false anomolies caused by logging into the game after being cloaked should be taken care of. 20. Ferrengi ships should be destroyable instead of only capturable. 21. A Q-cannon set to 100% atmosphere should shoot 100% not 50%. 22. A density scanner should not be able to detect a player or players in a citadel. 23. A ship should not be able to retreat back across a one-way warp. Doesn't one-way mean you can only go ONE WAY? 24. The death delay could stand some modifications, it only hurts the twits and the scout can't moth anymore so whats the point? 25. Loading your holds and then using the Planetary Transporter uses only 1 turn, should be two! 26. The Evil Iss should be returned. Make it harder to keep, but not impossible! 27. Planets can magically continue to upgrade after all of the colonists are removed. (colonists are only needed to chant a magic rune & press the auto upgrade button) 28. Commodities are created at a much higher percentage at a new port than are created at an old port. (50% vs 10%) 29. The "you can't do that from a planet" bug needs to be found! The game will think you are on a planet when you aren't. 30. The Doc's downright suck! In many cases they just flat out lie! 31. The ability to T-warp Tow ship should be removed. 32. The ability to create "Mega-Turn" should be removed. 33. The creation of ships with mega quanties of hardware (beacon bug) must be fixed or there is still a "Mega-Money" bug loose. 34 The Planet Transporter Tradeing needs to be dealt with. =============================================================================== 32. Q: Do ya have a Ferrengi Ship stat list too? A: Funny you should ask me that... <g> Here's a list of stats taken directly from the game: Ferrengi Assault Trader Basic Hold Cost: 6,000 Initial Holds: 12 Maximum Holds: 50 Main Drive Cost: 1,500 Max Fighters: 3,000 Maximum Shields: 200 Computer Cost : 16,400 Turns per Warp: 2 Offensive Odds: 1.0:1 Ship Hull Cost : 8,000 Mine Max: 10 Beacon Max: 5 Ship Base Cost : 31,900 Genesis Max: 0 Long Range Scan? No TransWarp Drive? No Planet Scanner? No Max Fighters Per Attack: 1,000 Photon Missiles? No Max Transporter Range : 0 Ferrengi BattleCruiser Basic Hold Cost: 8,000 Initial Holds: 16 Maximum Holds: 75 Main Drive Cost: 3,000 Max Fighters: 8,000 Maximum Shields: 800 Computer Cost : 40,600 Turns per Warp: 3 Offensive Odds: 1.2:1 Ship Hull Cost : 15,500 Mine Max: 25 Beacon Max: 15 Ship Base Cost : 67,100 Genesis Max: 3 Long Range Scan? Yes TransWarp Drive? No Planet Scanner? No Max Fighters Per Attack: 2,000 Photon Missiles? No Max Transporter Range : 2 Ferrengi Dreadnaught Basic Hold Cost: 10,000 Initial Holds: 20 Maximum Holds: 100 Main Drive Cost: 10,000 Max Fighters: 15,000 Maximum Shields: 1000 Computer Cost : 94,000 Turns per Warp: 4 Offensive Odds: 1.4:1 Ship Hull Cost : 25,000 Mine Max: 50 Beacon Max: 25 Ship Base Cost : 139,000 Genesis Max: 6 Long Range Scan? Yes TransWarp Drive? No Planet Scanner? Yes Max Fighters Per Attack: 5,000 Photon Missiles? Yes Max Transporter Range : 5