by Alan Davenport

It is a period of great instability. Mankind has broken the time and distance barrier to the stars with inexpensive warp driven space ships. Anyone with enough credits can buy a ship and head out into the void. Chaos rules. The central Earth government found that it is impossible to maintain law and order throughout the vastness of space and on the countless outposts that have appeared almost overnight. The only law is of survival. The only hope for survival is in strength. The only way to strength is through ruthless trading of basic goods. It seems that all ports always have too much or too little of one thing or another. You've purchased your ship, barely able to afford the minimum of holds, defensive fighters, some shield energy, and a few days cloaking charge. An ant to be squashed by the more powerful trader barons. However, you are smart. You are confident that you can hide out long enough to equip your ship with more powerful arms and holds and that you will one day be a trader baron to be feared!


As you sit down on the bridge of your new ship, you admire its compact and efficient design. Since you spent your every last credit on this beauty, and on equipping her, you live on the bridge. Your first move is to power up the ship's computer and start browsing its operations manual....

M - Move

Each location in the galaxy is called a sector. Each sector can have from 1 to 6 flux paths called "warps" which appear on the sector display. Warps lead to other sectors, usually close by, but occasionally reach long distances. To move, select a sector NUMBER to move to and enter the number after pressing "M".

S - Sensors

Just moving around blindly will get you killed real fast. It's best to use your sensors. They will show you what is in the adjacent sectors. Whether they have a port, a planet, are mined, has other players or have a defense force in them.

P - Port

To earn credits, you must transport goods from port to port. Some ports sell raw materials (Ore), Some sell food (Organics) and others sell end products (Equipment). It is more than just buying from one port and selling that product to another. Some ports are rather inflexible in their prices. Other port's prices vary greatly. All vary to some extent with supply and demand. You must use common sense in trading. If you suck a port dry (buy all there is to sell) or saturate a port (sell them so much that they don't want any more) you are going to be getting prices a lot less than if you spread your trading out.

B - Buy a Port

You can purchase the deed to any port except Earth. Ports are rather expensive but once you own one, the money it makes becomes yours less 10% taxes taken out by the Government PER DAY for defenses. The port will remain in your name until your death or someone "buys you out". It is best to buy ports on well traveled routes or nearby the home system (Earth) since they are more heavily traded. 1% of the credits you spend at your OWN ports is returned to you in taxes.

$ - Take Credits from your Ports

Use this command to electronically transfer the credits earned by your ports to your ship.

A - Attack Another Player

It's a rough universe. You may be harassed, attacked, or even KILLED by other players. You may attack other ships in self defense or maybe you got up on the wrong side of your cabin today and just feel mean. You attack with your "defensive" fighters. You may pick how many you wish to attack with and that group will fight until they kill off the attacked ship or are themselves killed completely off.

If you manage to kill off the ship you are attacking, you will be able to recover whatever portion of the ship that wasn't destroyed and that you have room to carry.

While moving around you may run into defensive forces. These forces will try to prevent you from entering their sector (unless they were dropped by a team member.) If you run into one, you may either try to fight them off or run away using emergency warp. If you attack, your force will either fight until it is killed off or wins the battle. If you attack with a large enough force, the defending fighters may decide that it is futile to resist and will offer to surrender. If you accept their surrender, they join YOUR forces. If however you reject their surrender, they will fight to the death (for what other choice have they?)

Being cloaked improves your chances in battle.

Your ship is equipped with a cloaking device. This device will make your ship invisible to other ships and improve your chances in battle. It is NOT foolproof however but being cloaked greatly protects you from most hazards. Unfortunately, the cloaking device requires a great deal of energy. This energy is not in the same form as produced by your ships engines and is quite expensive. It may only be bought at EARTH (Sector 1 port). Cloaking energy cannot be stored for any length of time. Once you buy cloaking energy, you immediately become cloaked and your cloaking device will continue to function until it exhausts all the available cloaking energy.

Having a lot of shield energy will help you survive attacks. 

Your ship is equiped with shields. These shields will protect your ship when it is attacked by either other ships or missiles and if you hit
sector mines. Shield power may be purchased at Earth. 

I - Info on Your Ship

This command tells you the current status of your mother ship. It will tell you much good information that you require to survive and is available at most menus, even if it is not displayed.

D - Drop a Sector Mine

Sector mines are produced by the larger planets. They may be dropped off in a sector and will seek out and explode on ANYONE who enters the sector after it is armed, (including YOU!) doing great damage. They are dangerous but are useful for laying traps for your enemies.

Q - Quit Back to the BBS.

You should be able to figure this one out.

Z - Instructions

You should be able to figure this one out too!

T - Team Menu

There is safety in numbers. You may team up with up to 3 others. The resources of Team Members are shared. Defense forces will allow passage of other team members. Planets with ground defenses will allow team members to land, etc. Items appearing on the team menu will vary. Only what is actually available for use will show up. When you create a NEW team, you will become the Team Captain. The team captain has extra functions and can banish team members, change the team password, etc. (You pick the team password when you create a new team. Other players will use this password to join your team.) You will remain the team captain until you die or quit the team. If this happens, the next team member who logs onto the game will be promoted to captain.

F - Drop Defensive Fighters in a Sector

If you wish to keep others out of a sector you may leave a portion of your ships defensive fighters there. They will try to prevent anyone who is not a team member from entering the sector. If someone runs into them who is not a team member, they will either have to use emergency warp or try to fight their way into the sector. If they choose to fight they will use their fighters against your defensive fighters.

If they attack with overwhelming odds your defense force may decide it is hopeless and surrender! Don't leave too small defense forces unless you like wasting fighters.

L - Land on or Create a Planet

Something that you might want to drop fighters to defend is a Planet. Planets are much more efficient at producing items than ports. Any excess goods produced by planets are stored in warehouses and you can take this excess for FREE. Planets produce Ore, Organics, Equipment, Fighters, Mines Missiles and Plasma Bolts. They also have a bank where you can deposit excess credits at 1% interest per day compounded by the minute! 

If you try to [L]and in a sector where there is no planet, the planet builders "Genesis, Incorporated" will ask you if you wish them to build you a planet here. When you buy a planet, it will have a defense level of 1 and will produce 1 unit of each item per day (Except mines, missiles and plasma bolts.)
Not very impressive. HOWEVER you can quickly build up a planet by spending money to increase productivity.

Productivity is increased by one unit of ore, org, and equ. for each 250 credits you spend. You can also increase a planet's productivity by transferring cargo to it until there is a 10 times surplus of the basic three items. If there is 10 times the daily production of ore, organincs or equipment in storage in the warehouses, production for that item will slowly increase. The bigger the planet, the faster the increase. Planets will also increase production by 1% a day no matter what. 

Production of fighters is the total of the daily production of ore, organics, and equipment. Missile production per day is total production of ore, organics and equipment / 2500. Mine production per day is total production of ore, orgranincs and equipment / 25000. Plasma bolt production is total production / 100,000. There is no upper limit on how big a planet can grow however over populated planets stand the chance of being hit by a plague. 

Obviously, you don't want just anyone in the universe to come along be able to plunder your planets! Especially when they reach a decent level of productivity. To defend your planets you can either drop defensive fighters in the same sector and/or build up ground defenses. Ground defenses will keep anyone who is not on your team from landing on your planets. Ground defenses are quite expensive but anyone attacking them will spend much more on their attack then you had to spend to build the defenses! Any ground forces on a
planet grow at a rate of 1% per day. 

When you land at a planet, you will have the option of taking [1]Ore, [2]Organics, [3]Equipment, [4]Fighters, [5]Missiles, [6]Mines, [9]Plasma Bolts or [A]ll (Take as much as you can carry taking the most valuable items first.)
You may also [T]ransfer any ore, organics, equipment you are carrying to the planet. You may also transfer excessive mines, missiles, plasma bolts and fighters to the planet. This is a good way to share resources with team members.

Every Planet has a bank. You may deposit credits there which will earn interest at the rate of 1% daily. At the bank, you specify how much you want in the account. ANYONE who is allowed to land at the planet can withdraw the credits. This is a good way for team members to share resources. Depositing credits on an undefended planet is foolish.

If too many people know where your planet is, you may hire Xannoron Movers to move your planet to a new location. This takes a good deal of time (10 turns per sector) but is a fairly safe procedure. There IS a very small chance of the planet blowing up due to excessive stress, but that is "Bad Business" and Xannoron Movers is usually quite careful. Moving two planets into one another can have disastrous results.

+ - Launch a Plasma Bolt

Plasma bolts are expensive but catastrophically destructive devices that your larger planets will produce for you. You cannot buy them at Earth. Plasma bolts will hit (and potentially destroy) ANYTHING that is in their path! They have many uses. When you launch one, you will be asked which sector you wish to send it to. Plasma bolts are extremely dangerous and can do great damage to an enemy if fired with care. Plasma bolts have limited range and weaken with distance.

! - Launch a Cruise Missile

Missiles are destructive weapons that your larger planets will produce for you. You cannot buy them at Earth. Missiles will attack (and potentially destroy) ANYTHING that does not belong to you or your team members. They have many uses. When you launch one, you will be asked which sector you wish to send it to. Missiles are single-minded and will attack the FIRST thing they find that is on their "hit-list". Be careful you don't hit the wrong target! Missiles have no range limitation and do not weaken with distance.

C - The Ship's Computer

The computer is the single most useful item on board your ship. It has many useful functions that can be selected by number. Each one is described below:

1 - Exit Computer Control

Easy, no description needed.

2 - Port Report

This will allow you to see the prices and amount of products of any port in a sector that is not defended by an enemy. You
enter the sector the port is in and the computer gives you the data.

3 - Autopilot

This is the single most useful computer function. You enter the sector you wish to go to and the computer will program the
navigation computer with the path data and you will be transported there (one sector at a time) automatically.

4 - Rank Players

This function will generate a scoreboard showing the relative power of each player, team, and alien forces in the game.

5 - Sub-Space Radio

The computer controlled radio will allow you to send messages to an individual player, your entire team, or ALL players.
Using the radio, you can send a short message to anyone.

6 - Review Radio Messages

Radio messages are stored for a short time in your computer's memory. You may use this function to reread incoming messages,
unexpired broadcast messages to all, or unread messages that you have transmitted to others.

7 - Set Sectors to Avoid using the Autopilot

There are times that you will wish to AVOID passing through dangerous sectors. The trouble with this is that the shortest
path found using the autopilot may pass THROUGH one of these sectors! Using this computer option, you can command the
computer to NOT choose paths through certain sectors. Up to thirty sectors may be eliminated.

8 - Display Galactic Newspaper

Almost everything that happens in the galaxy is recorded in the electronic newspaper. The list of what is displayed is
rather extensive. A serious trader ALWAYS reads the newspaper on a daily basis for important information.

9 - Planet Report

Similar to the function #2 port report, this will display the information or the status of any undefended planet.

10 - Path Finder

This will allow you to check the path between any two sectors. It is useful for finding safe paths around dangerous areas.

11 - Display Defense Forces

This function will display all of your defense forces, their locations and strengths.

12 - Check Port Profits

This function will display all of your ports that have earned credits from trading. The totals of barren ports, ports with credits, and total credits earned are displayed.

13 - Find Your Planets

This function will list the sector numbers of each planet that you have placed ground forces on.

14 - Find Nearest Ports

This function is extremely useful when trading. It will save you endless wandering looking for a port to trade your goods
at. It shows ports nearest your sector first then increasing in distance until you cancel the function.

15 - Show Active Spies

This function will show where any spies you have hired are.

16 - Find Port Pairs

This function will show where there are ports in adjacent sectors and what the pairs of ports are selling. It also shows
which port pairs are the most profitable. This is very useful for finding good places to trade.

17 - Check Profits of Trading at Ports in Adjacent Sectors

This function will tell you how much profit there will be if you do a two-way trade with the port(s) in the sector(s) that
is/are adjacent to the one you are in. 

G - Initiate Genesis

It has been written that one day, a Trader Baron will arise who will eliminate all of the evil in the universe. Only one true of heart and of great power may do this. Are you the one to fulfill the prophesy?

W - Emergency Warps

If you run into a fighter force too strong for you, or are trapped in a sector and wish to escape, you may raise your engine power to emergency warp levels. This uses a great deal of turns and you risk engine overload. If your engines overload, you will lose all turns for that day. Emergency Warps are for just that, EMERGENCIES! You should only use it in the greatest of need!

N - Rename Port

You can rename ports using this command. You must be the owner of the port.

X - Sound Effects On/Off

You can use this command to turn on and off the ANSI sound effects.

*** Miscellaneous Other Information ***

The Xannor

Man has encountered one, and only ONE other intelligent race in the galaxy; The Xannor. Unfortunately, they are completely aggressive and (apparently) impossible to eradicate. They wander around and attack anything and anyone they can find. They drop mines all over the place, sit in sectors and refuse to leave, and fire missiles seemingly at random. In short, they are arrogant little ------'s! The only good Xannor is a dead Xannor and the government will grant you 1 turn for every 250 Xannor killed. The Government will also greatly reward you if you can find their home system and destroy the defense forces there. It is rumored that the Xannor home planet is quite a
prize for the brave and more powerful players to plunder!


The Mercenaries

The government daily collects 10% (!!) taxes from port profits and uses this money to hire mercenaries. These mercenaries will fight any Xannor they find but also may plunder any planets they find, or join up with defense forces of other traders! They are an unpredictable and dangerous but it is rumored that they may be bribed to join up with traders. They will join up cheaply with you (for life with a powerful trader baron is better than working for the government!) but care must be exercised to not insult them or they will attack you to the death! If you pay them enough, they will join up with you and will remain loyal forever more. Nothing is certain however and care
should be exercised with them. If you are (heaven forbid!) killed, your old defense forces will become mercenaries.


Danger Scanner

The universe is dangerous! While moving, you can run into sector mines, black holes or defensive fighters that you will have to fight or use your emergency warp to escape from! Your could move cautiously (scanning before each move) OR purchase a Danger Scanner at Earth. A danger scanner interfaces with your onboard computer and will automatically scan the sector you are about to move into for dangerous situations. If danger is detected, the scanner will shut down your warp drives before you enter the sector and your computer will then ask you if you wish to enter the sector anyhow. A danger scanner is a MUST for moving about the universe. Buy one as soon as you can afford one. It can save your LIFE! Be warned however, danger scanners are fragile. They may be destroyed if your ship takes damage!

Spies

You may hires SPIES at Earth for a price. Spies ask a hefty price for searching. They will radio you back when they find anything of interest. 

Entering Commands

As a beginner, you will likely enter commands one at a time at the various prompts however if you continue to do so you will never be more than a mediocre player. The key to winning is to gain as much power as fast as possible. The key to speed is stacking commands. Commands can be stacked separated by semicolons. You may stack as many commands as you wish (within reason). An example of how to land at a planet, take all, and leave is below: 

L;A;L

Command strings will cancel if something unusual happens. (i.e. you run into a defense force, etc.) You can also cancel execution of a command string yourself by hitting CONTROL-X.

Some times you will want to constantly reuse a command string. You can save a command for reuse by placing a slash ( / ) at the end of the command string. The example for land-all-leave above would then look like this;

L;A;L/

To REPLAY the commands, hit CONTROL-R. Any command recorded is remembered until you log out of the game. Any new command recorded erases the previous entry.

Repeating Commands

You also may repeat a command up to 30 times while only entering it ONCE. To do this you enter your command string as usual, but put a "/R#" at the end of it where "#" is a number from 2 to 30. Say you were trading between two ports in sectors 555 and 666. A command string to do this would look like this:

M;555;P;1000;Y;1000;Y;M;666;P;1000;Y;1000;Y

You COULD put a slash on the end and then hit control-R to replay the command but if you want to do a lot of trading, even this can get tedious. A better way would be to use the repeat function. Let's say that you wanted to trade between the two ports 30 times. To do this you would put "/R30" at the end of the command. In this case, the command would look like this: 

M;555;P;1000;Y;1000;Y;M;666;P;1000;Y;1000;Y/R30
^^^^
See?

That would trade between the two ports 30 times. Now let's say you want to trade 30 MORE times. In this case, you can just hit control-R to replay the above command 30 MORE times!

If you want to CANCEL the command before it finishes, you can hit control-X. This will work for ANY command not just for repeat commands. This can be useful if you realize you made a mistake and want to abort! (-: 

Global Commands

Many commands of the most commonly used commands in the game are global. That is, they are available at almost every menu prompt even if they are NOT displayed. The global commands are: 
[I] - Info, [P] - Port, [L] - Land, [C] - Computer, and [M] - Move. 
There are a few others but those five are available almost everywhere.

The Final Word

That's it for the instructions. There are lots of not-so-obvious features and functions that you will discover as you become more and more
proficient at the game. Don't be afraid to experiment. A lot of things that seem random really aren't and can be used to your playing advantage as you learn all the tricks. Remember, others will be learning too and the key to winning is by being the most resourceful player! 

Alan Davenport
29 January, 1992
BBS # 1-717-686-3037
9600 HST
Fidonet 1:13/75
Door Distribution System Headquarters