TradeWars 2002

TW2002 title screen.

TradeWars 2002, also known as Trade Wars 2002 or TW2002, is a space game developed in the 1990s by Gary Martin for play as a BBS door game. 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 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.

The TradeWars 2002 universe

A TW2002 galaxy consists of at least 1,000 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:

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

Planets

File:TW2002PlanetM-recrop.gif

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 at 3:1 combat odds)
Level 3 - Quasar cannon (blasts invaders)
Level 4 - TransWarp drive (moves planet from sector to sector)
Level 5 - Shields (deploys shields at 20:1 combat odds)
Level 6 - Interdictor generator (prevents invaders from fleeing the sector)

There are seven different types of planets:

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

Starports

Ports buy and sell products, making them the primary source of income for most traders. The most important port is the Stardock, which houses the Federation Shipyards, the Stellar Hardware Emporium, and other crucial establishments. There are also three ports - Sol, Rylos, and Alpha Centauri - that specialize in selling fighters, shields, and cargo holds.

Ships

File:AlienDerelict1.gif

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:

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

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, 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.

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).

Gameplay

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.

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.

Scripts, macros, and utilities

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 and automatically map the TradeWars galaxy using a custom-designed database. Some serious players put their programming skills to work developing macros and scripts to quickly perform functions such as warping into FedSpace or attacking other ships.

The Telnet TW2002 scene

With the decline of modem-based bulletin board systems in the late 1990s, TW2002 enthusiasts switched to Telnet. The networks ranged from huge TW2002 hubs such as The Stardock to small operations such as Cyberia BBS. Some of the larger sites charge fees to cover their costs, while the BBSs, which are often holdovers from the days of free modem-based systems, are usually free.

TW2002 changed significantly when Telnet took over. Most modem-based BBSs had only one phone line, so the games were limited to one user at a time. Turns were usually sharply limited to prevent one player from monopolizing the BBS. Telnet allowed many users to play simultaneously, opening the game up for real-time interaction. This made scripts more important, because a slow-moving player was a sitting duck for ambushes.

The higher number of turns permitted on Telnet also allowed the games to move quicker; most tournaments are usually over within a month. Sometimes within days, a corp can gain an insurmountable advantage.

References

Planetary specifications
How to Play TradeWars and Stay Alive!
TradeWars 2002 Tips and Hints
Telnet Sites - The Stardock's list of TradeWars 2002 networks