Moving this from smack talk to a more constructive thread. With hope that I can learn more.

Other things I wish to learn about are:

Terra regeneration rates how to figure out when Terra regnerates colonists in a formula.

Odds of a Ferrengi or Alien attacking a fig, and why they move over the same fig 20 times or more.

Odds of getting a desired planet, how to figure out the number of gtorps to use and then bust to get the desired planet. For some reason the corps I am on keep getting lame planets when using gtorps.

Port regeneration, how to figure out when a port will regen based on global settings and port max values. Useful for ptrading.

Yes while I plan on writing a program eventually, there is a chance I could release it as freeware depending on my mood at the time. If I decide to charge for it I plan on offering a low price like $5 for the program to unlock advanced features. I am also trying to learn how to play better and figure out the game more to avoid having mis-information.




quote:
First let me explain something, I am currently on disability for a wide range of illnesses. I am going to college to try and earn a degree and get better. Two of those illnesses cause problems with memory, concentration, focus, and comprehension. I am trying to focus on something I love, Tradewars, and learn more about it. I am slowly getting better, but I still have a long way to go before I can go back to work.

I have programming skills, but have not used them in a while and I am quite rusty. I found several formulas and yes some people were able to help me like CK and others, for that I am greatful. I wrote some functions, heck I think I even posted source code to those functions on the forums here for various things. I even offered to convert VB functions to C for Earth and his ATTAC calculator and did not ask for any money in return. Like other TW Helpers, I want to use the some functionality for free and the rest they have to pay for. I have not yet found the perfect TW helper, yet I see elements from various helpers that can be combined into one. DRoP has potentional for my TW Helper idea to hook into it with its ODBC database.

As far as what I need to know, well just read my posts and see what areas I am lacking in.

One thing I have not yet been able to figure out is fig and shield prices. But I gave up on trying to figure it out when I got really fustratated when my theories did not work and I could not get a working formula. CK showed me a web page he designed to figure them out, but I am still clueless.

I am not a complete newbie, TW55 taught me how to play red in a MBBS game, I know how to play blue. Believe it or not there are actually people who know less than me who asked me for advice. Still I apparently do not know enough. I wish to learn more.

I also wanted to know how to figure out port prices and how to get 2 or 5 exp points a trade. Some people say it is impossible to get 5 exp, and IIRC one person said it was possible but only with low amounts of holds. I still do not understand the MCIC formula. Nor am I able to find it apparently.

I am also boggled by the alien settings and the formulas used for them. How much is too much and how much is too little? I do not want invicible aliens, but I do not want punching bags either.

Believe me that I am doing research, but I apparently am failing at it. I am definatly struggling here. Sorry for mis-information at times, I observe stuff that looks one way to me, but might be different to someone else. I only have my observations to go on which may be wrong, but it is all I got to work with.

Using the baseball anology, I am a player who never played in the Little League yet am in the Major League not knowing exactly what I am doing and having to guess at the rules and the way to play. I am lucky to have survived the last LoTR game I was in without getting podded, which is a major accomplishment for me. Tradewars seems to have Major and Little League players in the same game. Major League players complain that there is not enough competition, yet few Major League players want to mentor the Little League players to get them up to a more challenging level.

quote:Originally posted by Orion_Blastar

Moving this from smack talk to a more constructive thread. With hope that I can learn more.

Other things I wish to learn about are:

Terra regeneration rates how to figure out when Terra regnerates colonists in a formula.

Port regeneration, how to figure out when a port will regen based on global settings and port max values. Useful for ptrading.

Both of these are really simple. They regenerate in a simple linear fashion. If it regens a total of 24,000 in a day, that means each hour will have 1,000 generated, each minute will have 16.6667 generated, each second will have .27777 generated.

quote:
Odds of a Ferrengi or Alien attacking a fig, and why they move over the same fig 20 times or more.

The closer you are to their spawn location, the greater the likelyhood they'll hit a fig. Basically, the aliens are stupid. They move pretty much at random, looking for port pairs. I don't know that anyone has ever done a detailed analysis of their movement routine, as it generally wouldn't be worth the time.

quote:
Odds of getting a desired planet, how to figure out the number of gtorps to use and then bust to get the desired planet. For some reason the corps I am on keep getting lame planets when using gtorps.


http://www.tradewars2002.net/html.php?link=3

I find it more useful to overload the sector by 1 for certain gold planets, but then you have to deal with 10% nav haz when you're done.

quote:
One thing I have not yet been able to figure out is fig and shield prices. But I gave up on trying to figure it out when I got really fustratated when my theories did not work and I could not get a working formula. CK showed me a web page he designed to figure them out, but I am still clueless.

This has been discussed on these forums somewhat recently. Apparently they are on some sort of sine curve. I don't know the exact forumla, it's never been important. I just do cr1^m when I want to know how much they cost.

quote:
I also wanted to know how to figure out port prices and how to get 2 or 5 exp points a trade. Some people say it is impossible to get 5 exp, and IIRC one person said it was possible but only with low amounts of holds. I still do not understand the MCIC formula. Nor am I able to find it apparently.

It is pretty much impossilbe to get 5 exp trades at most ports. I only know of one person who has the port haggling with a ship really down, and he doesn't want to share his forumlas. Somewhat understandable, he's spent months of testing to get it down. As to 2 exp trades, they're fairly easy. Even without using MCIC and stuff, it just takes a little bit of testing to figure out counter offer percentages that normally work.

quote:
I am also boggled by the alien settings and the formulas used for them. How much is too much and how much is too little? I do not want invicible aliens, but I do not want punching bags either.

Aliens are a personal preference. You just have to tweak the settings until you find exactly what you want. There isn't any single "best" behavior, or it would be hard coded in. It's customizable so you can get exactly the behavior you want.

quote:Originally posted by Orion_Blastar

As far as what I need to know, well just read my posts and see what areas I am lacking in.


Harley gave you some good places to start, i will add http://www.tw-cabal.com/ (which is a wealth of information, that i have been trying for a year to get traitor to compile for the EIS site here). You read everything given to you by us in these posts and i think you will be well on your way to having enough of a base of Trade Wars knowledge to discuss the game with anyone.

Fig prices: 200 + (SIN((X)*(PI()/43.7725))*40)
Shield prices: 150 - (SIN((X)*(PI()/43.7725))*40)

... where X is the number of calendar days that have passed since 12 noon on 1/14/2003 (my reference date)

Local testing has shown me that these will still be accurate to within about 1/2 a credit 10 years from now, very very slowly diverging away from complete accuracy as of 1/14/2003.

Don't ask me how I figured this out. I'm just THAT smart. heh.

As per 5 xp trades -- I will preface this by saying it's possible I don't know what I'm talking about (see how easy it is to do that?) --

but... I believe it is only possible (as of version 3.11.55) to get 5 xp trades at ports with MCIC evenly divisible by 5. You must nail the best price down to the exact credit. Unless you are prepared to spend countless hours researching it, you're never going to be able to get it consistently.

As per getting desireable planets -- this is a working theory only, based strictly on empirical and anecdotal evidence (hey, that was easy to say too)... I have the best luck making gold planet types (planet type records 7 and higher) when there are several planets AND 10-20% nav haz in the sector. shooting a single Gtorp, blowing it up, and shooting another, almost always seems to result in the 7 original planet classes.

If you use 00.00 hours Jan. 1st 4004 BC as the base date, your formula is completely accurate, for eternity

quote:Originally posted by Cherokee-TLTT

Fig prices: 200 + (SIN((X)*(PI()/43.7725))*40)
Shield prices: 150 - (SIN((X)*(PI()/43.7725))*40)

... where X is the number of calendar days that have passed since 12 noon on 1/14/2003 (my reference date)

Local testing has shown me that these will still be accurate to within about 1/2 a credit 10 years from now, very very slowly diverging away from complete accuracy as of 1/14/2003.

Don't ask me how I figured this out. I'm just THAT smart. heh.

quote:Originally posted by Cherokee-TLTT

As per 5 xp trades -- I will preface this by saying it's possible I don't know what I'm talking about (see how easy it is to do that?) --

but... I believe it is only possible (as of version 3.11.55) to get 5 xp trades at ports with MCIC evenly divisible by 5. You must nail the best price down to the exact credit. Unless you are prepared to spend countless hours researching it, you're never going to be able to get it consistently.

I'll let the cat out of the bag , get a ship with 1 hold.
A timer script to port about once every 1-2 mins ..
A max port helps .. and will work on one in 4 ports.

Finding one isn't hard , I prefer ore selling cause its cheaper.
Timer activated for portting .. no haggle .. just port and except price .. 5 exp [:D]

I'll test this to see how much exp per hour [^]

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Will depend on port regen and port how often you can do it/hour. With an ore port at 2400 ore an 100% regen, you should be able to port 100 times in one hour, for 900 experience (5 for the ore, 2 each for org and equip). Port pair trading and getting 2 exp/haggle, you should be able to make around 9000 credits and 6 exp every 3 turns. So in 100 turns ppting, you will make around 850 exp after using the cash to bust planets. If playing solo, it might be worth it to leave yourself exposed in space for an hour, but with a corp, it's generally better to have a blue go ppt all of their turns, and then just have the red bust up and use full turns sst.

quote:Originally posted by Harley Nuss (teamEIS)

Will depend on port regen and port how often you can do it/hour. With an ore port at 2400 ore an 100% regen, you should be able to port 100 times in one hour, for 900 experience (5 for the ore, 2 each for org and equip). Port pair trading and getting 2 exp/haggle, you should be able to make around 9000 credits and 6 exp every 3 turns. So in 100 turns ppting, you will make around 850 exp after using the cash to bust planets. If playing solo, it might be worth it to leave yourself exposed in space for an hour, but with a corp, it's generally better to have a blue go ppt all of their turns, and then just have the red bust up and use full turns sst.

Your right , it doesn't gain much exp .. about 1300 an hour , but mixed with my P-DWatch , I can sit in door and make exp while waiting for someone to come near my door to be photoned [:D]

I think next I'll see if I can squeeze a few extra exp from the other 2 products as well.
That will make spending the turn a bit more reasonable.

I've done another run and found I make 50 exp per hour , or ave of 2640 /hr.
Not bad , if I wanted to look like I was cashing while sleeping at keyboard [;)]

It's really only useful in the early stages of the game, when you need experience to begin red work. Once you have a decent ship or enough exp to begin red work, you'll gain much more exp/turn trading or red cashing than you will porting for a few exp at a time.

Thanks this is a lot more helpful, and I am learning more about Tradewars now.

If any of you have ever downloaded and read the Slice War Manual, (the original) which I still have a copy of, he gives an interesting theory about getting desirable planets, and guess what, I don't know why that theory works but I have used it ever since and I never fail to get people to ask me how I consistently get the best planets. Gold added a new twist, which is, it depends upon whether or not there is a port in the sector at the time, and what type of port it is, but the formula as laid out by Slice STILL WORKS with a 70 to 80 percent success rate.

It has to do with sitting in the sector for a certain amount of minutes without making a single menu command. Certain planets for certain minutes. I won't outline it here because I know most of you are going to think I'm nuts anyway.

But it works.

There are all kinds of myths that people want to believe about things like that. If it gives you warm fuzzies to think that waiting between planet busts will help, go ahead. It's one of those things that won't hurt.

Well I know that getting gold planets is hard. I tried all kinds of tricks, like the ones here, and the only way I got gold planets was by pure luck.

I had to bust about 20 or 30 planets to get two or three gold planets that I wanted to get. So it takes, time, turns, a ton of credits and patience. [:D]

Basically use gtorps to go one planet above the limit, bust the undesirable planet, and then shoot another gtorp. Sometimes bust two planets as Cherokee said.

In advanced stages of the game, I use a level 4 planet or two into the sector I want to build the planets at, and then overload the sector with 1 or 2 above the limit and then bust the undesirable planet and shoot another gtorp. After clearing the navhaz by making another gtorp or two, I move the level 4 planets out so the number of planets are at a safe level.