TradeWars 2002

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TW2002 title screen.

TradeWars 2002, also known as Trade Wars 2002 or TW2002, is a space game developed in the late 1980s by Gary Martin for play as a BBS door game, with later versions developed by John Pritchett both for BBS and, starting in 1998, a devoted game server called TWGS (Trade Wars Game Server). The player is a trader in a galaxy with a fixed set of other players (either human or computer). The players seek to gain control of a limited set and amount of resources (specifically fuel ore, organics, and equipment) and travel through sectors of the galaxy trading them for money or undervalued resources. Players use their wealth to upgrade their spaceship with better weapons and defenses and fight for control of planets and starbases.

TW2002 takes a large investment of time compared to most door games. Some modern TW2002 tournaments allow an infinite number of turns, and the most dedicated players devote most of their spare time over several days to the race for galactic dominance. A few Telnet tournaments award cash prizes to the winner.

TradeWars 2002's combination of Star Wars and Star Trek themes, as well as its many subtleties and the potential to endlessly refine macros, scripts, and utilities in an effort to gain wealth, launch attacks, and counter the opposition, have made the game a cult classic.

1 The TradeWars 2002 universe
2 Gameplay
3 The Telnet TW2002 scene
4 See also
5 References
6 External links

[edit] The TradeWars 2002 universe

A TW2002 galaxy consists of 100-20,000 interconnected sectors. These sectors can contain planets, ports, ships, mines, fighters, and beacons. In addition to human traders, three types of computer-generated characters inhabit the galaxy:

Federation (Federation officers who enforce FedLaws)
Ferrengi (Space pirates who prey on weakly-defended traders)
Aliens (Mostly-harmless traders wandering space)

New TWGS Gold aliens expand the type and strength of aliens in the game. Some of these alien races can be quite challenging. Many times they will have a full level 6 citadel planet and a small dedicated area of space that they defend. Early in the game this can be quite a prize to own, however it doesn't come cheaply.

[edit] Planets

Class M planet

Players can create planets by launching a genesis torpedo. Colonists can then be imported from Terra and put to work generating products. Assembling ore, organics, equipment, and colonists allows the player to build and upgrade the planetary Citadel through six levels. Each Citadel level adds additional capabilities:

Level 1 - Treasury (stores credits at 2% daily interest)
Level 2 - Combat Control Computer (deploys fighters)
Level 3 - Quasar cannon (blasts invaders)
Level 4 - TransWarp drive (moves planet from sector to sector)
Level 5 - Shields (deploys shields)
Level 6 - Interdictor generator (prevents invaders from fleeing the sector)

There are seven different types of planets:

Class M planet (Earth type)
Class K planet (Desert wasteland)
Class O planet (Oceanic)
Class L planet (Mountainous)
Class C planet (Glacial)
Class H planet (Volcanic)
Class U planet (Vaporous/Gaseous)

There are also many edits available in the popular TWGS platform that expand or change these planets by changing the time they take to reach the next citadel level, the amount of product each planet can hold, or the number of colonists a planet can hold. For instance the popular unlimited turn "Subzero" edit for TWGS Gold has planets that can reach level 4 in a single day, this expands the tactics of play beyond the original "stock" planets.

[edit] Starports

Ports buy and sell products, making them the primary source of income for most traders. There are 3 product types: fuel ore, organics and equipment. Each port will either buy or sell each of those products at a different price. Buying ports usually pay more than selling ports charge; this arbitrage is the basic way to make credits in the game. However each port is willing to buy or sell at a different level, meaning that some ports are worth more money to you.

One of the most important ports is the Stardock, which houses the Federation Shipyards, the Stellar Hardware Emporium, and other crucial establishments where you can outfit your ship. There are also three ports - Sol, Rylos, and Alpha Centauri - that specialize in selling fighters, shields, and cargo holds.

[edit] Ships

Alien Derelict

Ships allow traders to travel from sector to sector, transporting products and fighters. Each ship type has different attributes, such as speed, combat specifications, equipment it can carry, etc. The sixteen types that can be purchased at StarDock include the:

Merchant Cruiser
Scout Marauder
Missile Frigate
Corellian Battleship
Corporate Flagship
Colonial Transport
CargoTran
Merchant Freighter
Imperial StarShip
Havoc GunStar
StarMaster
Constellation
T'Khasi Orion
Tholian Sentinel
Taurean Mule
Interdictor Cruiser

In addition, the Ferrengi have four ship types that can be acquired by attacking and capturing them:

Ferrengi Assault Trader
Ferrengi BattleCruiser
Ferrengi Dreadnaught
Ferrengi Scorpion

Trading efficiency, or TE, is a factor for comparing the overall ability of different ship types to use turns effectively. The Merchant Freighter is the most efficient in a "stock edit", having a TE of 100. Trading efficiency takes into consideration:

"Gross trading capacity," the number of holds divided by the number of turns it takes to move to the next sector.
Turns used at the beginning of each session, traveling to the first trading port.
Turns used to move to a new trading pair, once a particular pair of ports has been drained. Ships with many holds lose some of their efficiency because they trade out the ports in only a few round trips and must move on to another pair much more often, thereby wasting a greater percentage of their total turns.
Turns used to travel back home from the last trading pair of the day. T-warp ships gain a small advantage here.

If you're not playing in a stock game one of the easiest ways to determine basic trading efficiency is to check the "holds per turn" ratio. A 100 hold ship with a 2 turn per warp cost has a 50 hold/turn ratio. In the early game phases while you are trying to get started you will need to pay special attention to this in order to get the most credits for your turns.

A ship's Safety Rating represents its ability to withstand attack. It is calculated using the total fighters plus shields, multiplied by the ship's odds. This rating is equal to the number of fighters it will take to destroy a fully loaded ship of this type, assuming an attacking ship with 1:1 odds. The Imperial StarShip, for instance, has 50,000 fighters, 2,000 shields, and combat odds of 1.5:1, giving it a Safety Rating of 78,000. This makes it a much safer ship than its closest competitor, the Corporate Flagship (Safety Rating: 25,800).

[edit] Gameplay

[edit] Good vs. evil

Players can be aligned on the side of either good or evil. A player's alignment is represented as an integer; a positive (good) alignment is earned by doing good deeds, such as posting bounties on space pirates and destroying evildoers. A negative (evil) alignment is the result of evil deeds such as destroying planets and dumping colonists into space.

Good: Being a good-aligned player has three advantages:

Protection in FedSpace (under certain conditions).
The ability to enter the FedPolice HQ at Stardock.
The chance to obtain a Federal Commission.

A player with an alignment of +500 can apply for a Federal Commission. This is essentially a permit granted by the Federation to buy an Imperial StarShip. If a player subsequently becomes evil, the Commission is revoked; he is then required by FedLaw to return the StarShip to the Stardock or risk destruction by Federals such as Captain Zyrain.

Evil: When a player becomes evil enough (alignment drops to -100 or lower), he can begin robbing ports. Because of this, evils have the ability to raise money quickly. However, they must keep track of ports they have been busted at, because going there again until the bust is cleared will result in a fake bust automatically. Busts are cleared on the turn every x amount of days where x is set by the sysop.

[edit] Corporations

Players can form corporations to share planets, ships, and other resources. The founder of the corporation is the CEO, who can own a Corporate Flagship and control the membership of the corp. Sometimes good and evil players team up on the same corp, with the Goods towing the Evils to various destination in order to save them valuable turns.

[edit] Scripts, macros, and utilities

The simplest scripts may be made by opening up a word processor and typing in a key sequence that would otherwise be typed in the game, which usually consists of letter commands, carriage returns, and numbers, and then cutting and pasting it into the game. These scripts are quite useful when otherwise tedious, repetitious jobs such as hauling colonists and materiel or trading out ports are necessary.

Even casual participation requires some notetaking in order to keep track of the locations of important planets, ports, and dead ends. Several "helpers," computer programs to collect and process TradeWars data, have been created to automate this task. For instance, a player can launch space probes called "ether probes" and automatically explore the TradeWars galaxy, storing data using a custom-designed database. Some serious players put their programming skills to work developing macros and scripts to quickly perform functions such as instantly warping into a sector and attacking or launching a Photon Missile at another ship when the ship enters the area. Of course, this puts most players who do not have these macros at a serious disadvantage, and use of these macros may even be considered cheating by the sysops of some games.

Since the development of TWGS and telnet-based play the level of automation has increased a great deal. Today there are several cheap (and even free) database and scripting engines for players that wish to expand their play.

[edit] The Telnet TW2002 scene

With the decline of modem-based bulletin board systems in the late 1990s, TW2002 enthusiasts switched to Telnet, with most games hosted through the TCP/IP game manager TWGS rather than BBS. These sites ranged from huge TW2002 hubs such as The Stardock to smaller servers. Some of the larger sites charge fees to cover their costs, while the small sites, often holdovers from the days of free modem-based systems, are usually free.

As multiline BBSs became common, and then Telnet took over, Trade Wars evolved to support multiplayer interaction. Trade Wars for the MBBS, released in 1994, and followed soon after by Trade Wars 2002 v3 for all other BBSs, opened the game up to real-time interaction. This made scripts more important, because a slow-moving player was a sitting duck for ambushes. This is especially true for games with tens of thousands or unlimited turns (common in TWv3), since a player can let a script run and build up his base while he's off doing other activities. Slower players or players who do not have the inclination to use scripts tend to do better in games with smaller numbers of turns per day.

The higher number of turns permitted with TWv3 also allowed the games to move quicker; unlimited turn games or games with tens of thousands of turns often end in less than a week.

Telnet-based play has also opened up the door for aggressive multi-player tournament play. These games challenge the most advanced players in the game and often involve heavy scripting and database usage.

Also, TWv3 granted wide leeway to GameOps when setting up their TradeWars games. In "Gold" mode, GameOps can edit ships, planets, and even aliens in any way they desire. Unmodified games are often referred to as "Classic" or "Stock" TradeWars.

Unlike most online games, TradeWars 2002 does not have a built in centralized server or game list. Players have attempted to remedy this problem by creating automated game site lists, most recently TWGS Search, an open database of servers with a searchable, constantly updated, list of games.