I am in The Republic's LotR game, game 5. The colonists are gone, despite the GameOp upping the rate. Other players have under 1000 Exp, but have expensive ships and are destroying other players already. There is only 1000 turns a day, yet over 52 planets and Terra has run dry.

I have 1666 Exp, a fairly decent ship I am trying to max out the figs on so I don't get podded by the Ringwraiths, or podded while I colonize from sector 1. No level 4 planets, so I cannot PTrade, all I can see to do to earn credits is Pair Porting. Other players are Blue, except for a Red who got SD by a Blue. Did I miss something? So how do the experts build up really fast in 5 days without earning as much or more experience than I do? How can they colonize 100K colonists in 5 days? There can't be more than 10 people playing right now, and maybe half of them or six of them are seriously playing.

I've read online guides to Tw2002/TWGS, and either I am missing something, or there is something the guides don't tell you.

Since the colonists are all but gone, I can only colonize so many a day, and spend the rest gridding and paired porting. Is this the right thing to do?

Orion,

I'd like to go over some advanced tactics with you for getting a good start in a game, if you'd like to PM me here your ICQ number. I can tell by your post that you really want to learn, but as yet haven't stumbled across anybody willing to show you some of the early-game fast-start tricks that can really make the difference between winning and running.

Also, because colonists are a limited, but very valuable resource, many teams prioritize colonizing ahead of cashing until Terra is drained. Many people don't show experience changes when they trade because they either don't haggle at all, or they use haggling scripts that avoid an experience "hit" when trading. The reason for this is so that they can keep their experience below 1,000 to stay "Fed Safe."

Anyway, send me a PM with your ICQ number and we'll hook up. =)

galaxi

Sent you my ICQ number, don't be shocked that it is so low, I got into ICQ a long time ago when it was still new. Before AOL bought them out and ruined it.

What I did in the LotR game was used a Merc (Merchant Cruiser clone) to PPT at a port pair near the stardock to get enough credits to buy a Pippin (Merf clone) with 65 cargo holds and a holoscanner. It has 2 turns to warp, so I explored and traded, and then earned enough to buy an Arragon ship which has 150 cargo holds, 2 turns to warp, 10K figs, 3K shields, and decent combat odds. Then I built a few planets, did some gridding, and PPT. The next day the colonists where gone, I was only able to grab 1K of them.

Now upping the rate does not do alot. First a turn based game is not going to have the 10 mil collies that a unlimited game does. Upping the rate to the max is still only making 65k per day. Easily taken by 1000 turns. Cause it is spread out through the day. i THINK MOST LIMITED TURN GAMES ONLY BANG WITH 100K to start with anyway. And if that is the case then that would be my first priority. You get all your corp mates to trade real quick and then get enough money to get you a ship that will twarp. That is why a corp is better than a single.

Agreed, but I cannot get anyone to corp with me in the LotR game. By the time I had enough credits for a transwarpable ship, Terra was almost dry, down to the last 800K colies.

My hope is that I can make friends with other Corps in the game and maybe when it rebangs I can join a corp.

What I need to learn is what is the fastest way to make credits in the first 5 days of the game for a Blue. Obviously it isn't paired porting, I tried that. Not sure what else besides making a planet next to a port, colonizing the heck out of it, and selling the product to the port.

say you ppt for the first 2-3 days of the game, make between 1.5-3mil in that time. you find yourself a nice dead end not too far from terra with an sbb port in it. build an H and an O, and an L for the quick lvl 4. maybe another H too. you colonise the three planets, and after you get some org on the O, sell it to the port. re-invest the money you made back onto the port. you should never have to ppt again

PPT for 2-3 days with 1k turns?

Your wack homes.

I PPTed for 12, maybe 1300 turns. Then started colonising.. You have to take edits into consideration, once you have enough cash to get a commish, get a decent twarpable ship, and a few bux left for ore, and planets, then your ready.

As for figs, you only need enough for shields to make sure your nav haz doesn't kill ya

Planets make or break a team, skukk and I have a good history of working together, so it requires little or no communication for us.. You'll find someone like that.

I would have to use some turns to explore, in order to find a good place to stick a few planets in. I usually try to find a tunnel at least two sectors deep. Like one sector leading into it with two warps and the dead-end sector leading to only the two warp sector. Which is why I traded the Merc in for a Pippin, as it is a Merf like ship with 2 turns to warp and 65 cargo holds. Then I PPTed for a while until I could afford to trade into an Arragon, sort of a Mini-ISS ship that holds 10K figs and has 150 cargo holds and has Transwarp. I don't have three ships I have one, I traded the others in.

What I didn't take into account was that other players started colonizing early and took almost all of the colonists.

Of course the planets I made were mostly Class M planets. This time I got lucky and made a Class O planet. Looks like I may have to bust some planets to get those H and L planets.

Let me find a freshly rebanged game and I can start over again.

Orion, I see here another place where people are getting an edge on you:

You're wasting turns looking for a base.

Run a ZTM (zero turn mapper) instead, and then fire probes into a few likely spots to see what ports there are, and also get the sector explored this way so you can check the intersector warps for wormholes. The ZTM maps, while extremely useful, are not always 100% accurate. Once you find a likely spot or two, THEN spend turns to actually run out there and establish a base (bring your g-torps with you.)

In order for this strategy to be effective, it must be done very early, usually at the end of your first days' turns (if you're playing solo), so you're strong enough to break out through a SD blockade plus have g-torps ready aboard your ship. If you can get a team together, then one person usually maps while another ppt's the initial cash and then a third comes in a bit later with full turns and goes red, providing cash back to the first two (who stay blue to colonize.) There is a valid arugument for and against extremely early mapping, because if a guy maps BEFORE he plays his turns, every hour he maps, he loses that many more unplayed turns (because he can't regenerate more than the max turns.) Really, it depends on the type and texture of the game, and your starting team size, how you start each game.

But trust me, it takes coordination and communication to play effectively as a team in low turn games. =) Unless you get a dream team like Graz has with skukk, where you both know each other (and the game) so well that the communication becomes subliminal.

A solo has very little chance against a well-organized team.

galaxi

I concur with Galaxi- Our first day we had planets made, and had begun colonisation. The hardest part isn't figuring out where to put the planets, it's putting the planets in a good posistion, ie:

Stardock 7-10 hops out
Terra 6-12 hops out
Class 0's 8-10 hops

If your in a bubble/tunnel close enough to class O's, you usually don't have to worry about range to SD. I prefer in large games to stay as far away from terra as possible, and twarp my planets in to colonise (If there are colonists remaining.)

Graz

Ok let me get this straight:

Play my turns first, then run a ZTM script to find a place to put a planet. Find a fairly decent location with a SBB port by sending out Eprobes, and then buy Gtorps and start colonizing.

Did I get it right?

After your in a twarpable ship, with commish, yes.

Right get a transwarpable ship and a Federal Commision.

Run the ZTM in FedSpace while I am FedSave so nobody can pod me.

A question, how long does the ZTM scan take? Four hours, or longer? I imagine the more sectors the game has the longer it takes.

20k sectors depending if you run all three ZTM routes then it could take up to 10 hours maybe more it has been forever since i have done a ZTM or been in a game to where i would need to ZTM
Strider

Well sounds like I could run the ZTM script, take a long nap, eat a meal, watch TV, and get back to it 10 hours later.