Black Nova Traders

Ah, so it was you who took that ship name!

Ok, I think I'm starting to get the hang of this. Wasted a lot of turns early on trying to figure out the gameplay, etc....

Finally figured out the Trade Route stuff, which is quite helpful.

Many questions:
- So how often do "Turns" accrue? I'd burned through a LOT of mine today.
- What are Space Beacons good for? How does one use them?
- What about Emergency Warp Drives? Why would you need one when it seems your ship can Warp around at will anyway?
- And what does a Warp Editor do?
- Do Planets need Torpedos, or just Ships?

There's a FAQ in the game that may answer some of your questions better than I can.

Ok, someone help me out here - when is your score calculated?

Every three minutes you get 1 turn.

Space Beacons allow you to edit a message that occurs in the top middle of the sector main screen.

Emergency Warp is to get you away from someone bigger and meaner than you, doesn't work as well after an average tech level of 10 IIRC.

Warp Editor allows you to remove links

Both I think...never really got into combat in the last game.

I don't know, because as near as I can tell, I shouldn't have a score of 0, and use to have a score of 1900.

Actually, every six minutes you get 3 turns, so you get 720 a day.

Faisent is right on the beacons and emergency warp.

The Warp editor allows you to remove or CREATE links, the only limitations are in federation space.

Captin Chewbacca of the UWA Shriiwook is prowling the spacelanes. Will do more during the weekend, but I'm always looking for allies.

I am really curious about the scoring thing.

I *know* I'm making about 1 million a "tick" without doing any trading, and a full 4 turn run nets me about 5 million creds at current hull tech. I've got 18million colonists and hundreds of thousands of fighters protecting them, and a significant bankroll...but my score is "0"

Dan, what are you pulling in that gives you 5k in score???

Arg!!!

Anyone fought anyone else off yet? That might be the key to points...

I only say that because I'm off in deep space hiding from all you guys just building up fighters to keep you away forever.

I *think* you get evil for blowing up other people, not sure about good - I assume building planets and the like, but if that were the case I should have more good than you. Though maybe you get "good" for trading with Federation space - I cleared out of Sol quicker than lightning, spent my first 20-30 turns just jumping randomly away from Sol space.

points seem to have something to do with trading - i've just got 90 million credits of profit, and my points have jumped around 8k up, whilst earlier when i was loading up my world my colonists, fighters and mines i lost around 6k point.

I'm sitting on 150 million or so, score 0...

how about trading? i made the jump after trading 6.6 million units of goods/ore and 5.5 million units of energy

heres the code for scoring:

Code:

$calc_hull              = "ROUND(pow($upgrade_factor,hull))";
  $calc_engines           = "ROUND(pow($upgrade_factor,engines))";
  $calc_power             = "ROUND(pow($upgrade_factor,power))";
  $calc_computer          = "ROUND(pow($upgrade_factor,computer))";
  $calc_sensors           = "ROUND(pow($upgrade_factor,sensors))";
  $calc_beams             = "ROUND(pow($upgrade_factor,beams))";
  $calc_torp_launchers    = "ROUND(pow($upgrade_factor,torp_launchers))";
  $calc_shields           = "ROUND(pow($upgrade_factor,shields))";
  $calc_armor             = "ROUND(pow($upgrade_factor,armor))";
  $calc_cloak             = "ROUND(pow($upgrade_factor,cloak))";
  $calc_levels            = "($calc_hull+$calc_engines+$calc_power+$calc_computer+$calc_sensors+$calc_beams+$calc_torp_launchers+$calc_shields+$calc_armor+$calc_cloak)*$upgrade_cost";

  $calc_torps             = "$dbtables[ships].torps*$torpedo_price";
  $calc_armor_pts         = "armor_pts*$armor_price";
  $calc_ship_ore          = "ship_ore*$ore_price";
  $calc_ship_organics     = "ship_organics*$organics_price";
  $calc_ship_goods        = "ship_goods*$goods_price";
  $calc_ship_energy       = "ship_energy*$energy_price";
  $calc_ship_colonists    = "ship_colonists*$colonist_price";
  $calc_ship_fighters     = "ship_fighters*$fighter_price";
  $calc_equip             = "$calc_torps+$calc_armor_pts+$calc_ship_ore+$calc_ship_organics+$calc_ship_goods+$calc_ship_energy+$calc_ship_colonists+$calc_ship_fighters";

  $calc_dev_warpedit      = "dev_warpedit*$dev_warpedit_price";
  $calc_dev_genesis       = "dev_genesis*$dev_genesis_price";
  $calc_dev_beacon        = "dev_beacon*$dev_beacon_price";
  $calc_dev_emerwarp      = "dev_emerwarp*$dev_emerwarp_price";
  $calc_dev_escapepod     = "IF(dev_escapepod='Y', $dev_escapepod_price, 0)";
  $calc_dev_fuelscoop     = "IF(dev_fuelscoop='Y', $dev_fuelscoop_price, 0)";
  $calc_dev_lssd          = "IF(dev_lssd='Y', $dev_lssd_price, 0)";
  $calc_dev_minedeflector = "dev_minedeflector*$dev_minedeflector_price";
  $calc_dev               = "$calc_dev_warpedit+$calc_dev_genesis+$calc_dev_beacon+$calc_dev_emerwarp+$calc_dev_escapepod+$calc_dev_fuelscoop+$calc_dev_minedeflector+$calc_dev_lssd";

  $calc_planet_goods      = "SUM($dbtables[planets].organics)*$organics_price+SUM($dbtables[planets].ore)*$ore_price+SUM($dbtables[planets].goods)*$goods_price+SUM($dbtables[planets].energy)*$energy_price";
  $calc_planet_colonists  = "SUM($dbtables[planets].colonists)*$colonist_price";
  $calc_planet_defence    = "SUM($dbtables[planets].fighters)*$fighter_price+IF($dbtables[planets].base='Y', $base_credits+SUM($dbtables[planets].torps)*$torpedo_price, 0)";
  $calc_planet_credits    = "SUM($dbtables[planets].credits)";

  $res = $db->Execute("SELECT $calc_levels+$calc_equip+$calc_dev+$dbtables[ships].credits+$calc_planet_goods+$calc_planet_colonists+$calc_planet_defence+$calc_planet_credits AS score FROM $dbtables[ships] LEFT JOIN $dbtables[planets] ON $dbtables[planets].owner=ship_id WHERE ship_id=$sid AND ship_destroyed='N'");
  $row = $res->fields;
  $score = $row[score];
  $res = $db->Execute("SELECT balance, loan FROM $dbtables[ibank_accounts] where ship_id = $sid");
  if($res)
  {
     $row = $res->fields;
     $score += ($row[balance] - $row[loan]);
  }
  if($score<0) $score=0;
  $score = ROUND(SQRT($score));
  $db->Execute("UPDATE $dbtables[ships] SET score=$score WHERE ship_id=$sid");

  return $score;

Good vs. Evil is about defeating people stronger or weaker than you, and also about claiming bounties.

Dunno, by that I should have something simply because I don't have any bank loans.

I haven't fought anyone and I have 8 good, so there's more to it than that

Strange scoring. I must be doing SOMETHING right, but I'll be damned if I know what. Lots of small planet colonies, no bases yet, and plenty of trades, but I'm still not near the numbers of credits that some of you have mentioned. My Good level is like, 18 or so, and I've never fought anybody. Go figure.

Maybe the program likes old Bruce Dern sci-fi flicks.

Just for fun, here's my current totals (from the planets menu):

...Ore....Org.....Goods....Ener......Colon.........Creds..........Fight.....Torp
19,994 23,798 205,411 605,351 18,317,724 184,588,843 235,356 252,010

That isn't counting my ship tech, which I am not going to post here.

Anyone able to beat that?

I've figured it out, for some reason the game thinks my net worth is less than 0 credits (I could tell from the IGN banking window, my max loan (25% of net worth is 0). I dunno if the web admin account has any special tools, but obviously I am worth much more than that...I've never had a loan, lost a ship, or attacked anyone...if this cannot be fixed, I'd like to build a new account and be allowed to transfer my stuff to it (if that account can have its turns edited so that I don't get any extra).

It would be *really* easy for me to just transfer everything to a new account, but I don't want to have an unfair advantage, I just want my score to be correct.

I might get into this in a week when Steph goes back.

Dunno though, I'm still pretty bitter about that last game where Soma and I had massive interstellar empires with hundreds of built up worlds and just as we were about to jump into all out war the game got deleted off the server.

Soma died before that war happened, and we scooped up his worlds.

WTF do I go to get colonists? Special stations don't seem to sell them.

Edit: For some reason, my ship won't hold colonists. I have a category 12 hull but it says 0/0 for colonists.

Clear out your cargo hold, from what I could tell, all Specials sell colonists.

Thanks. Londinium now has a burgeoning population, and I have a shiny hat!

Ok, belay everything I mentioned while I was bitching about my score.

I just dropped 10million creds in the bank and my score went up 3000 points. I guess cash value in the bank is what triggers it...

Edit > Just dropped another 250million and went up an additional 13000 points, so from what I can tell score is based off of your bank funds more than anything else....