I wuold like to play TradeWars, but how? I have seen many strategy guides and so on... But how I get started playing the game?

Waltter of Shangri´La sietch

Some advice:

#1 Get a Tradewars helper program.

#2 Look in the Announcements section of this forum for games that have been rebanged.

#3 Read the hints and tips at http://www.tw-cabal.com/ and other fine web sites.

#4 Find someone who can teach you. I learned how to play Red recently from TradeWarrior55, before that all I knew was how to play blue.

#5 Practice the scripts, or better yet play by hand so you can get the feel of the game. Learn to pair port trade by hand first and then run a script to do it for you.

For Helpers I usually use ATTAC or SWATH, have yet to register them. Recently I discovered J-TWAT doesn't need registration and the scripts don't abort after 50 or 100 cycles.

J-TWAT can be downloaded at:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/j-twat

ATTAC at:
http://www.tw-attac.com/

SWATH at:
http://www.swath.net/

A good game to start out in is the Lord Of The Rings game at The Republic, very few players there. Game L, use TheRepublic.dyndns.org for the address and use port 23. Email me at orion_blastar at yahoo.com replace the at with "@", I do that so Spambots won't pick up my email address. Join Game L there and I can email you the Corp password and I can train you. That is if you are serious about learning. Pick J-TWAT if you can, update it with version 1.5 and then join that game and email me.

Press "?" at the menus to learn what they do.

Some Main Menu commands:
M - Move: Moves you to a sector.
A - Attack: Attacks a player or alien.
P - Port: Ports at a port if there is one there.
L - Land: Lands on a planet or attempts to if one is there.
Any Number (Example 1234) - Move to sector: Moves to sector 1234 if you typed in "1234".
T - Corp Menu: Takes you to the Corp menu so you can create or join a corp or access corp functions.
C - Computer Menu: Takes you into the ship's computer, you can do a lot of things here. I'll get into it later.
S - Scan: Scans adjacent sectors if you bought a scanner or are in an Escape Pod.
D - Display: Redisplays sector info.
I - Ship Info: Info on your current ship.
J - Jettison: Dumps Cargo or Colonists into space. Removes it from your ship. If Colonists, and your alignment is 1 or above, you lose alignment.
F - Fighters: Take or Leave fighters. We call them Figs for short.
V- View Game Status: Provides lots of usefull info.
H - Handle Mines: Takes or Leaves mines.
E - Etherprobe: Shoots out an Etherprobe if you bought one.
G - Show Deployed Fighters: Shows your personal and/or corporate fighters in the sectors.
K - Show Mines: Shows your personal and/or corporate mines.
W - Tow Spacecraft: Tow an unmanned or manned ship. Cannot tow from the Stardock, and cannot tow any player unless they have 0 fighters and are not at the Stardock or FedSpace. Usefull to move allies to safe sectors when they run out of turns.
Z - Tradewars Docs: You'll want to read this first before you move out of sector 1 or whatever sector you start in.

Once you understand the main menu, I can tell you about the Computer and Corporate Menus in a later post.

Another main menu item I forgot but it is important:

X - Xport: Ship Transport. Beams you out of one ship and into another if you have another one and it is in range.

If you know the menus and the strategy and just want to join a game to learn I can help. If you want to know how to configure your TWHelper, let me know which one and I can help. If you don't know the menus or the strategy I can help, but it is going to take longer.

Walter,

If you don't have ICQ, get it, you can download it at http://www.icq.com - after that, add user 45338941 - I'll gladly help you get started.

Grazhopper,
Could I get some tips from you also I really like your style of game play. I am trying to learn to play Twars from the best of the best. I am a son of DH. You should know who that is and old school legonary player. I would only use alittle of your time, thnks, Aesoo

Go ahead and message me AeSoo- tell DH I said hey

If anyone wants to learn, or wants to help me teach newbies, consider joining up with my Corp over at The Republic Game L. Very few players there, and an ideal game to learn with nice ship edits.

Email me if interested at orion_blastar at yahoo.com

I'm also looking to get a good corp together. I've been Perma Corped with Tradewarrior55, but he got too sick to play anymore and the other people he trained seem to be doing their own thing. I was supposed to be Perma Corped with them, but they don't have room in their corp on the servers we all play in.

I did have an offer to Perma Corp with Demon and BladeRunner at Imperial Outpost, but somehow that never happened. I lost contact with them, got busy getting ready for college, had real life issues I had to deal with. As a result I limited my Tradewars games to a smaller number, been trying to avoid Unlimited Games and playing in 1K or 2K turn games. For some reason my YIM is messed up, keeps complaining about my Sound Card driver. Can't get the audio talk to work.

Games I play in:

The Republic Game L TheRepublic.dyndns.org Port 23

Simpsonville Game C http://www.simpsonville.net Port 23

BioHazmat Game C biohazmat.ath.cx Port 1313

System78 Game S twgs.system78.com Port 23

I may have to reduce those games when college classes start. Maybe dropping System78 and BioHazmat.

Heh, I should slam you, because if you don't have time because of college, you don't have time to run a decent team.

As for teaching new players, I've seen alot of misinformation from you.. You're still learning the game, yet you want to teach?
NE way, back to the topic

It doesn't take much to become an average player, it's not scripts that set the mold for an above average player, or the helper.. It's the knowledge of the game. I have to argue orions first post, about getting a helper first thing. You would be better off with zoc.. Learn to play, then get a helper. The people I trained back in the day, started with their fingers, then eventually advanced to rexx scripts, twar, swath, and eventually TWX.

TWX is the best of all these helpers, however, my point is.. If you want help doing something, shouldn't you know how to do it first?

my icq is 45338941

I agree, you don't learn anything by watching the script do everything for you.

And there is no way in hell you will ever be decent at writing scripts or macros if you don't understand the game enough to play by hand.

Well, he can hook up with orion if he wants in his perma

<G>

I personally don't have time to create a perma, which means I'm not going to join one that lacks leadership

Well I'm going to college to improve myself, real life issues and all.

Yes I am still learning the new things in TWGS and the Helpers. But I have skills from the Classic Tradewars days. Best way to learn is to just get a Telnet client like Putty, and play by hand for a while. Learn the menus, learn how paired port trading works, learn how planet farming works, learn the rest of the things you need to know before running scripts.

I figure better he starts learning than having bobody teach him at all. Even if I don't understand 100% of the game concepts, I can at least teach him paired porting and planet farming by hand.

Speaking of which, did Waltter ever log back on? Anyone hear from him?

I believe he tried to ICQ me, but I won't accept people on my list without sending me a decent request

Well you are a better teacher than me, in fact I could learn a lot from you if I was worthy. But I am still learning myself.

I do get offers to Perma Corp as a Blue Planet Farmer, I seem to do that quite well.

TWX I heard a lot about, very fast. On Alien Base there was a Corp dominating one of the games I was on, but their attack script was too slow. I was able to warp out of their "trap" at the Stardock before they hit me for the second time, and I did so by hand. Good thing I had maxed out sheilds and figs on me. Other players were not so lucky, I saw they got their ships captured. Ran into their toll fighters and old slowpoke was back munching on my shields again. I was solo in that game, but I survived for a long time. Currently I play in games that don't have a lot of players in it until I can get better.

we need some more players in game c at alien base it is getting boring bring on the compitition
Strider

Uh, 40000 turns, way too much for me. Zulu Nation edits look interesting, but I don't have the time to play a 40000 turn game. I try to limit my turns to under 3000 a day. My wife doesn't like being a Tradewars Widow.