Interstellar Communicator #9 From: dpierce@erinet.com (Daniel Pierce) Date: Mon, 15 May 1995 00:00:00 +0000 Interstellar Communicator Issue 9 Stardate 1044 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright 1995 by Daniel Pierce dpierce@erinet.com ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- The newsletter of Galactic Empires and Interstellar Traders Daniel Pierce, 17 Dean Place, Dayton Ohio 45420 USA We need your articles. Your comments. Your ideas. Your gripes. Statistics: There are 887 suns, 499 planets, 127 Bases, 51 Starports, 26 Beacons, 4 Battle stations, 152 Trampships, 293 Transports, 500 Warships, 80 Merchantman, 103 Scouts, 0 Shuttles, 0 Monitors. There are 36 Merchants, 19 Empires, 41 Live players, 14 Computer players. Federation 109 planets, 43 starbases, 0 colonies, 1 starports. 5313000 people, 2307000 industry, 10 scouts, 116 warships, 157 transports. Star League 0 planets, 0 starbases, 0 colonies, 32 starports. 2125000 people, 325000 industry, 9 warships, 6 transports, 127 trampships. Antares Confederacy 43 planets, 9 starbases, 0 colonies, 1 starports. 3144000 people, 1004000 industry, 5 scouts, 12 warships, 75 transports. Dreenoi 31 planets, 13 starbases, 0 colonies, 1 starports. 59448000 people, 3616000 industry, 5 scouts, 18 warships, 48 transports. Cyborg 33 planets, 3 starbases, 0 colonies, 3 starports. 556000 people, 727000 industry, 15 scouts, 15 warships, 45 transports. Mechs 0 planets, 0 starbases, 0 colonies, 3 starports. 347000 people, 300000 industry, 15 scouts, 9 warships, 15 transports. Weyland-Yutani 1 planet, 8 starbases, 1 colony, 1 starport. 219000 people, 117000 industry, 1 scout, 1 warship, 1 transport, 12 trampships. Caladan 2 planets, 0 starbases, 0 colonies, 1 starports. 231000 people, 101000 industry, 1 scout, 1 warship, 1 transport. Imperial Empire 51 planets, 26 starbases, 1 starport. 796000 people, 425000 industry, 20 scouts, 80 warships, 96 transports, 30 trampships. Veiled Society 3 planets, 1 starbase, 174000 people, 100000 industry, 1 scout, 1 warship, 1 transport. Hegemony 2 planets, 0 starbases, 0 colonies, 1 starport. 133000 people, 100000 industry, 1 scout, 1 warship, 1 transport. What's going on? Currently, the key to Trader success is to go to the Federation or Antares homeworlds and stay there. Each stardate you Hunt Debris and Hunt sharks. Suggested orders: Sell metals & all but 100 fuel, then Mine A or Hunt Debris, then Hunt Sharks a few times. Don't bother going back to a Star League starport as prices at Von Braun starport are about the same. If you can get and sell 200 fuel & metals each stardate should get you 400-500,000 credits. Freighter class Trampships run about 2-3 million credits each from the Star League and seem to be everywhere. If you are really short of cash then try your luck Pirating. Communication from The Caladan Empire: Traders wanted to help bolster fledgling galactic economy. Interested parties please contact me at Kyle@melbourne.dialix.oz.au. Questions: I've long since given up with trying to figure out what's what in Interstellar Traders. I realize that I.T. is a subset of Galactic Empires but I've now resolved myself to the fact that I am playing only a small subset of my abilities in Interstellar Traders. I've been playing this game for what, two months now? All I've been doing is going to one system, performing a buy/mine/colonists order, then flying to another world and performing a sell/colonize order. It's been fun and all but, well, you can see where it's starting to get a tad tedious. When the newsletters come in, half of what's in them makes no sense to me since I don't play Galactic Empires. I thought we were going to get a revised I.T. rulebook but I haven't seen one. All-in-all, I'm really confused. Anyway, that's not your fault. I'm just not figuring out what I'm sure the other players have figured out already and that's how to get the most out of the game. So, in this light, here's my questions: 1) I want a new ship. The problem is that I have no idea what I can afford nor do I know how to go about getting one! My Merchantman is currently valued at 1,325,184 credits and I have roughly 440,000 credits in the bank. That's almost 1.8 million credits total. How do I figure out what's available to me and how to I go about buying/building a ship? 2) I want to figure out what more I can do. Can you fill me in a little better about buying (what did you call it) a "tramp" freighter or something like that? How many ships can I own? How do I go about setting up a trade run with such a Tramp Freighter? Any help you could offer would be great. I'm just going nowhere in this game and I'm -sure- there must be more to it. Response: The new rule book will be out at the end of the month. We are working on Bank Loans, 'automatic-pilot' orders for your extra ships, and ways to set up your own trading bases. New Freighter class Trampships cost about 2-3 million. If and when Empires start producing them in quantity they should be charging 1-2 million for them. Use Show Storage to see what ships are for sale at Star League locations. A Yacht sells for less than 100,000 and can carry 1000 fuel. Fuel is available at some mid-sized Federation starbases at reasonable prices. If 300 fuel is bought for 1000 each and sold at 00:00:LLL for 2000 each that is a 300,000 profit per round trip. Yachts are so small they don't catch many Sharks so Hunting is not profitable with them. Long term you need to team up with someone, preferably an Empire. You can expect big things to happen at any Empire's homeworld as anything they produce is in huge batches, leaving surpluses they don't use. Example, if an Empire decides to produce Luxury goods to make a lot of credits then they will produce 50-100,000 of them. The empire will only be able to get rid of 10-20,000 per turn. If you can get 2500 of them for 500 each and dump them elseware for 1000 each thats 1.25 million profit. One empire has 2700 computers surplus and as all their transport is being used for high priority work the computers just sit there. Star League value would be at least 270 million for them. Markets are developed by communication between producers and buyers. If a Trader knows where things can be sold for a profit then they need to find producers (empires with surpluses) that have inventory that needs moving. Buying a ship is easy once you have the credits. Just use Show Storage when you will be at a Star League starport that has 'ships in storage' and you will see what's for sale and for how much. Then select the ship you want and issue 'Buy Ship sXXX'. Or, if you want to get rid of your present ship use 'Tradeup sXXX'. You almost have enough to get a Freighter if you tradeup to one. A Freighter has 2500 cargo capacity and 10,000 fuel capacity. In one turn they can trade as much as a Falcon does in 10 turns. Until the new rules come out you can run as many ships as you want and when the new rules are in affect you will still be able to use those ships for automatic trading. Q) When I get a list of the Interstellar Trader market locations I don't see 10:00:LLL listed. Why is that? a) Two possibilities - If no one has been there yet then it's not in the database yet. As there can be 250 * 100 Star League bases they are generated as needed. That does create a sort-of loop hole as you could jump to 10:01:LLL, making a new starport and in a few turns it will be producing Freighters you could buy. The other possibility is that the Market reports may not be reporting on regions higher then region 4, which will be corrected if true. Q) I gather I have to have a unit in a location to look at ships in storage there. Is this correct? a) That is correct. You need a base, ship, or beacon to keep tabs on what is there. Q) Is there any way of building more than one thing at a single location in a given turn? For instance my home world is producing a lot of stuff every turn. I want to build beacons but I don't particularly want to build such a large quantity. Is building 2 or more things at once possible? a) Simply put, no. You can set up a small colony of say 1000 people and industry and use it to do small production runs. If you have a surplus then sell the extra to other empires or Traders. Anything you make can be sold to any base that has the credits to pay. An empire can expect to have more than one Starport and many colonies at their homeworld to support many production runs each turn. Setting up production facilities at other player's locations saves shipping capacity and costs but ties you to their resource base and leaves you vulnerable to their enemies. Q) I tried to upgrade my star base twice last turn so that it would immediately gain star port status. The game seemed to get the right idea of what I wanted to do but b905 is still a star base. Have I missed something here? a) The correct way is: Start b905, Upgrade Starport. I saw what you were trying to do and I believe it's a Starport now. Q) I may have missed this in the documentation and if I have just point it out and I'll have another look but, how do you go about producing ships? a) Use 'Build Ship <class name of ship>' as in Build Ship Freighter. You will use all the industry there to build them, creating one for every 2250 of industrial capacity. Remember that computers multiply industrial capacity. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Notes from above: I still don't have a WWW page working as Windows doesn't seem to believe I have a modem. In DOS it works fine. Galactic Empire players need to get their turn fees up to date as after a $-5.00 balance the program won't accept any more orders until it's paid up. As of this newsletter, that means ALL the Galactic Empire players. Some players have more than one position so you need to use a different 'Begin' line. Use 'Begin <name of your empire> <password>' or use 'Begin <your position number> <password>'. Use quotes if your position name is more than one word. Some players have many net addresses and that really confuses the program as it will only recognize TWO addresses. You must send in your turns from either your main address or your IAMALSO address. If you don't, like sending in a turn from a friend's address, then you need to stick in a comment line telling me what your From address is. If you send in a question it will get answered quicker if it's not in the middle of your turn. Seperate e-mail for turns and questions will get a faster response. If you want the rules for Galactic Empires or Interstellar Traders or back issues of the Interstellar Communicator just e-mail a message to dpierce@erinet.com. New players will be started up when the turns are run which is every Tuesday and Friday, every week. Mail is checked every day. ========================== End of Transmission =========================== ----- ---------------------------------------------------- : \ | / : Programming Services, Unit 16 : :-- * --: dpierce@erinet.com - Daniel Pierce : : / | \ : Pacunium-non-fumo! - Money doesn't stink : ---------------------------------------------------- Up