Bienvenue sur le manuel de BlackNova Traders FAQ.

1. Pour tous :
   1. Guide pour les nouveaux joueurs
   2. Les règles
   3. Autres Info
   
   
   
2. Stratégies:
   1. Le marchand
   2. Le bâtisseur
   3. Le banquier
   4. Le conquérant
   5. L'idiot
   
   
   
3. Autres :
   1. Astuces
   2. Planetary Production Values
   3. Hull Sizes by Tech Level
   4. Upgrade Costs by Tech Level
   5. The Particulars of Combat
   6. How... or How Not to Colonize a Planet
   
   
   
4. Questions and Answers:
   
   
   

Voici le document qu'il faut commencer par lire avant sa première connexion.

Voici les règles officielles du jeu. Comme c'est un jeu sur le web, il est relativement difficile de tricher.

1. Il est interdit d'avoir plusieurs comptes. En d'autres mots, si vous avez plus d'un personnage dans la même partie, vous êtes en train de tricher. Si vous voulez tester différentes stratégies, rejoignez plusieurs parties. Si vous êtes pris en ayant plusieurs comptes, ils seront détruits.
2. Les héritages sont interdits. Je vais commencer par définir cette notion. Certains joueurs créent des comptes, et avec le capital initial de tours ne font que du commerce. Lorsque ce capital est épuisé, ils laissent leurs crédits à un endroit sûr, autodétruisent le compte, puis recommencent avec un autre compte. Ensuite, ils créent un nouveau compte et vont récupérer les crédits. Ces joueurs sont facilement détectés par le classement en efficacité/tour.
3. Les insultes, propos dégradants ou déplacés sont interdits dans les forum ainsi que sur les balises spatiales.
4. Si vous trouvez un bug permettant d'exploiter une faille, vous devez en informer immédiatement le webmaster.

Les autres questions doivent être posées dans le forum.

Il y a quelques stratégies génériques pour vous aider à démarrer dans le jeu. Elles sont très générales. Elles sont là pour vous aider à vous faire une idée sur ce qui fonctionne et ce qui ne marche pas. Il y a bien sûr une variété très large de stratégies, mais celles là sont les principales.

Pour toutes ces stratégies, on suppose que vous avez déjà survécu à vos deux premiers jours dans le jeu. Si vous n'en êtes pas encore à ce stade, consultez le Guide du débutant.

Le marchand passe surtout son temps à commercer. La meilleure méthode est de trouver une station commerciale de produits facturés adjacente à une station commerciale de métal. Ensuite, commercer entre les deux stations jusqu'à ce que vous puissiez vous payer un agrandissement de la coque, ou bien que les prix offerts par les ports ne soient plus intéressants. Lorsque vos moteurs sont assez gros pour utiliser l'espace réel (cela dépend de la taille de la galaxie, en général c'est vers les niveaux 14 à 18), faites des routes commerciales entre les ports de métaux et de produits manufacturés. À ce niveau, ils n'ont pas à être adjascents. N'oubliez pas de vous équiper d'un collecteur d'énergie si vous commercez à travers l'espace réel.

Assurez vous d'avoir un maximum d'hyper-espace d'urgence ainsi qu'une capsule de sauvetage. Ne vous préoccupez pas du niveau de vos technologies à l'exception de la coque, puissance et moteurs. Tout le reste ne sert qu'au combat ou la colonisation. Vos technologies militaires peuvent rester à zéro puisque votre arme principale est l'hyper-espace d'urgence.

AVANTAGES: Montée rapide du score. Bonne méthode si vous entrez dans le jeu longtemps après le début de la partie.
INCONVÉNIENTS: L'absence d'empire planétaire vous pedra sur le long terme. Le marchand n'est efficace que jusqu'à un niveau de coque d'environ 18 au maximum.

Le bâtisseur cherche principalement à se construire un empire planétaire. Il va donc aumenter sa coque jusqu'à un niveau d'environ 15 ou 16. Ensuite, il commencera à coloniser une planète. Colonisez jusqu'à 20-25 millions et ensuite passez à la planète suivante. Ne colonisez pas au maximum une planète afin que les colons se reproduisent. Les colons arrêtent de se reproduire losqu'ils sont 100 millions sur une planète.

Augmentez votre coque jusqu'à un niveau de 15-16, ensuite augmentez les autres technologies 4 niveau en dessous de votre coque. Ne vous préoccupez pas de la technologie des sondeurs. Les bâtisseurs n'en ont pas besoin. Ils n'ont pas non plus besoin d'armure. Ayez toujours un maximum d'hyper-espace d'urgence et un module de secours. À chaque fois que vous augmentez votre coque, augmentez aussi les autres technologies. Arrêtez d'augmenter vos moteurs dès que vous pouvez aller n'importe où dans espace-réel en 1 tour.

Pour coloniser, voyagez en espace réel jusqu'à un spatioport spécial, prenez une cargaison complète de colons, intercepteurs et mines. Voyagez en espace réel jusqu'à votre nouvelle planète, déposez-y les colons, intercepteur et mines ainsi que l'énergie que vous avez récolté lors de votre trajet en espace réel.

Colonisez en permanence. Utilisez l'argent produit par vos planètes afin d'acheter des ressources pour vos planètes. Avec cette stratégie, vous n'avez pas besoin de beaucoup commercer.

Avantages : Vous faites beaucoup d'argent sur le long terme.
Inconvénients : C'est un peu long à démarrer, et des conquérants peuvent capturer vos planètes.

Le banquier construit une planète au maximum de ses capacités. Construisez comme un bâtisseur. Assurez-vous que la planète est parfaitement défendue, ajoutez en permanence des intercepteurs. Si vous pensez que la planète a un nombre d'intercepteur ridiculement élevé, c'est qu'il y en a probablement le bon nombre. Il est recommandé de dépenser 5 à 10% de ses tours pour continuer à ajouter des intercepteurs et des torpilles sur la planète.

Voici comment un banquier fait pour vivre : Mettez tout votre argent sur la planète, et atterrissez sur ladite planète. Il faut qu'elle soit suffisemment bien défendue pour résister à toutes les attaques. Attendez 600 tours pendant lesquels vous toucherez des intérêts sur votre argent. Ensuite, jouez les 600 tours comme un marchand. À la fin, mettez l'argent gagné sur la planète, et attendez à nouveau 600 tours avant de rejouer. L'important est de laisser l'argent le plus longtemps possible afin de toucher un maximum d'intérêts.

Cette stratégie fonctionne assez bien si elle est combinée avec la stratégie du bâtisseur, c'est à dire construisez sur plusieurs planètes, mais mettez l'argent sur une seule. Il est cependant un peu plus difficile de défendre votre empire ainsi.

Avantages : Vous pouvez vous faire un gros paquet d'argent si vous êtes patient.
Inconvénients : Vous ne pouvez joueur que tous les 2 jours, et vous n'avez pas beaucoup de planètes qui produisent.

The premise here is that you build up your military techs (shields, armour, computers, torps, and to a lesser degree sensors) and use them to take other people's planets. You then use the money acquired from these new planets to upgrade even further. You end up with lots of ill gotten colonists and planets this way. They will make money for you and you will gain an empire similar to that a Builder might create.

Be sure to stock every new planet acquired with plenty of fighters and torps to be sure that the former owner won't come and try to take the planet back. Trust me, that sucks.

PROS: You can get a whole lot of colonists using a small number of turns.
CONS: Everyone will hate you and it's sometimes hard to defend new "acquisitions".

This is more a list of what not to do. I've seen people do things that boggle the mind, but the truth is that they just don't know any better. Here's a listing. Don't...

1. ...scan over and over and over. It is a waste of turns. Don't scan ships or planets unless you actively plan on attacking them. For one, it's a waste of turns. Also, it pisses people off to be scanned. You will be marked if you scan someone more than once.
2. ...waste your time trading energy or organics. Ore and goods will give you the greatest returns.
3. ...realspace move unless you can get somewhere in 1 or 2 turns. I've seen people use 50-100 turns to move from where they are to sol. You could probably move from sector to sector and find a special port using less turns. Plus you might find other planets or trading ports along the way.

If I think of more, or you email me, I'll add them to this list.

This section contains some information on game mechanics. For example, if you want to know how many units of organics your planet can make in a turn, you could probably find it here.

Please send me any cool tricks you think of. I'll list the ones I know.

1. Before you attack a planet check to see if it is set to sell. If it is, buy all the energy. The planet's beams and shields will be made useless.
2. If you need to go to a special port and don't particularly care where you go afterwards, shop at good old sector 0. After you're done wait around and let the update that runs every 6 minutes place you in a random sector. You effectively get a free move. Of course, this only works if you're hull is over the allowed federation space limit. I call this the "sol bump".
3. Whenever you buy an EWD, buy a warp editor to go along with it. That way, if you get attacked you can easily create a link back to wherever you were before. If being there is important that is.

Planets can produce all sorts of things. Here goes. By the way, all of the commodity production rates assume you're producing at 100% capacity. If you're putting 50% towards a commodity, for example, it would take twice as many colonists to make the same number of said items.

1. Colonists reproduce at the rate of 1.0005 * your current population each turn. So, it takes 2000 colonists to have one baby each turn. Man, these guys need some more mood music I guess.
2. Money left on the planet will increase at the rate of 1.0005 * current money on planet each turn. In other words, you get .05% interest on your cash every turn. This works out pretty well if you have lots of money.
3. It takes 20,000 colonists to make 1 fighter each turn. The number of fighters produced is as follows: number of colonists * .005 * .01
4. It takes 20,000 colonists to make 1 torpedo each turn. The number of torps produced is as follows: number of colonists * .005 * .01
5. It takes 800 colonists to make 1 unit of ore each turn. The number of ore units produced is as follows: number of colonists * .005 * .25
6. It takes 400 colonists to make 1 unit of organics each turn. The number of organics units produced is as follows: number of colonists * .005 * .50
7. It takes 800 colonists to make 1 unit of goods each turn. The number of goods units produced is as follows: number of colonists * .005 * .25
8. It takes 2000 colonists to make 1 unit of energy each turn. The number of energy units produced is as follows: number of colonists * .005 * .1
9. It takes 67 colonists to make 1 credit each turn. The number of credits produced is as follows: number of colonists * .005 * 3.0

This list will show you how many items you can store in your holds. This list also represents armor, shields, beams, torps, and fighter capacity. I show up to tech level 24 That's the highest I've ever gotten to. The formula for figuring out the capacity of your holds or other tech levels you will have is 100*(1.5^(the tech level in question)). Round off that number and you have your answer.

100 150 225 338 506

759 1,138 1,709 2,563 3,844

5,767 8,650 12,975 19,462 29,193

43,789 65,684 98,526 147,789 221,684

332,526 498,789 748,182 1,122,274 1,683,411

This is a listing of how much it costs to upgrade to a certain tech level. For example, upgrading from 0 to 1 costs 1,000 credits.

1,000 2,000 4,000 8,000 16,000

32,000 64,000 128,000 256,000 512,000

1,024,000 2,048,000 4,096,000 8,192,000 16,384,000

32,768,000 65,536,000 131,072,000 262,144,000 524,288,000

1,048,576,000 2,097,152,000 4,194,304,000 8,388,608,000 16,777,216,000

Combat is tricky. I'm going to lay it out one step at a time. First we'll do ship to ship combat, and then we'll do ship to planet combat. This is basically an English representation of the code. Now, those of you who complain about not being able to read the PHP code can quiet down.

One very important thing that I want to stress is this. In a fight, you use 100% of your fighters. You only use 2% of your torps. This is because the torpedo launchers mounted on your ship can only launch a salvo equal to 2% of the maximum torps you can carry. Make sense? I hope so.

VERY IMPORTANT ADDITION TO VERSION 0.1.14 COMBAT:
Combat now requires energy for beams and shields. If you have 20k energy on your ship and your beams can support 25k beams and your shields are at 25k shields, you'll actually get 20k beams and 0 shields. The reason is that beams use energy before shields do. In this example, you'd have to have 50k energy on hand for beams and shields to both be at max power.

Ship to Ship Combat

Ship to ship combat happens in a very straightforward manner. Here we go. I'll be using the following method to determine who is the attacker and who is the defender. a_shields is attacker shields. d_shields is defender shields. No here we go.

1. First, a_engines and d_engines are compared. A chance to attack is determined by this formula: success=(10-d_engines+a_engines)*5. This number is then compared to a random number between 1 and 100. If the random number is higher than the success number, the attack goes on. Otherwise you get a message saying "Target out maneuvered you!".
   
   Here's an example. If your engines are 13 and his engines are 16, then we calculate the success rate as (10-16+13)*5. The result is 35. Hence, you have a 65% chance (35% chance to fail) to succeed.
   
   
2. Second, a_sensors and d_cloak are compared. A chance to attack is determined by this formula: success=(10-d_cloak+a_sensors)*5. This number is then compared to a random number between 1 and 100. If the random number is lower than the success number, the attack goes on. Otherwise you get a message saying "Unable to get a lock on target!".
   
   Here's an example. If your sensors are 7 and his cloak is 3, then we calculate the success rate as (10-3+7)*5. This result is 70. This means you have a straight 70% chance of success.
   
   I know this looks the same as the above engines check, but here you get the success percent right away. There you have to subtract from 100. Looks like two different people wrote this code. Incidentally, there's always at least a 5% success or 5% failure chance. Nothing is certain.
   
   
3. Okay, now combat is a go. If the defender has an Emergency Warp Device, it is used and the defender is sent to a random sector between 1 and the max sector number, which is 5000 in this game. Combat, of course, would end. If the defender has no Emergency Warp Devices, combat is continued.
   
   
4. First, beams are exchanged against fighters. The a_beams will destroy up to half of the d_fighters and vice versa.
   
   For example, you have 20,000 beams and he has 14,000 fighters. Your beams will take out 7,000 fighters (half) and leave you with 13,000 beams left over. If you had 20,000 beams and he had 47,000 fighters, you would take out 20,000 fighters. That would leave you with 0 beams and leave him with 27,000 fighters.
   
   
5. This step only happens if either player has any beams left. Assume we have beams left. The a_beams will go against d_shields. If the beams are higher, they will negate all of the shields and there will still be some beams left over. The same thing goes for the defender's beams against your shields.
   
   For example, you have 7,000 beams left over from the previous step. Your opponent has 20,000 shields. Your beams would take away 7,000 shield points and your beams would be done. If he had had only 6,000 shields, your beams would have taken away all shields and left you with 1,000 beams left over.
   
   
6. This step also only happens if there are beams left over from the previous two steps. In this step, a_beams are matched up against d_armor. If your beams are greater than his armor, then he is going to die. If your beams aren't high enough, you just take away that many points of armor.
   
   For example, you have 3,000 beams left over and the opponent has 40,000 armor. You'll take away 3,000, leaving him with 37,000 armor. If he had 3,000 armor or less, he would die in the conflict. Death equates to an armor rating of 0 or less.
   
   
7. Now we have an exchange of torpedoes. In this version of the game (blacknova.net 3/6/01) torps have a damage rating of 10. This is something that can be changed in the config file, so it might not always be the same. First off, torp damage is calculated by multiplying the number of torps you have by the torp damage rate. So, if you had 400 torps, your torp damage would be 4,000 (400*10).
   
   If the defender has any fighters left, the torp damage will take out up to half of them. It's basically the same as with the beams. So, if your torp damage is 4,000 and d_fighters is 5,000, you will take out 2,500 fighters. That'll leave you with 1,500 worth of torp damage to work with. If he had had 10,000 fighters, you would have taken out a full 4,000 of them. You wouldn't have any torp damage left though.
   
   
8. If you have any torp damage left, it is applied to the defender's armor. So, if you had 4,000 torp damage left, you'd take away 4,000 armor.
   
   
9. Now, fighters attack. Your original fighters total is subtracted from his fighter total, and his original total is deleted from yours. This might not seem immediately intuitive, but it is. I'll give some examples.
   
   You have 40,000 and he has 36,000. You'll end up with 4,000 left over and he'll end up with 0.
   You have 20,000 and he has 20,000. You'll both end up with 0.
   You have 15,000 and he has 27,000. You'll end up with 0 and he'll end up with 12,000.
   
   
10. If there are any fighters left, they are applied to the defender's armor. So, if you have 34,000 fighters left, you can do 34,000 damage to d_armor. If the defender doesn't have enough armor left, too bad.
    
    
11. The last step is to test whether or not either player is dead. If either player has armor of 0 or less, they are dead. If you die, life sucks. You learned a hard lesson. If your opponent dies and you live, you get some money based on salvaging his ship. If you want to know how much, look in the code. I'm tired.

Ship to Planet Combat

This works almost exactly the same as above. If the defender's ship is not on the planet, then the planet is considered defeated if its shields and fighters are reduced to 0. The planet has no armor, so skip the part where you attack the opponent's armor.

If the planet's owner is on the planet, then things are somewhat more complicated. You should understand how combat works from the above listing, so I'll just list the order in which things happen.

1. Your beams can take out up to half of the planet's fighters.
2. Planet beams take out up to half of your fighters.
3. Owner beams take out up to half of your fighters.
4. Player beams go against planet shields.
5. Planet beams go against your shields.
6. Owner beams go against your shields.
7. Your beams go against owner armor.
8. Planet beams go against your armor.
9. Owner beams go against your armor.
10. Your torp damage takes out planet fighters.
11. Your torp damage takes out up to half of the owner's fighter.
12. Planet torps take out up to half of your fighters.
13. Owner torps take out up to half of your fighters.
14. Your torp damage goes against owner's armor.
15. Planet torp damage goes against your armor.
16. Owner torp damage goes against your armor.
17. Your fighters go against planet fighters.
18. Your fighters go against owner fighters.
19. Your fighters go against planet shields.
20. Your fighters go against owner armor.
21. Planet fighters go against your armor.
22. Owner fighters go against your armor.
23. If your armor is 0 or less, you die. Bozo.
24. If owner armor is 0 or less, he dies. Good job.
25. If you're alive, he's dead, and the planet has no fighters or shields, you win and get the planet. Well played.

See, I told you it was easy.

This is something I wrote in the forums... thought it belonged here. Standard cut 'n' paste action. Here goes:

Also, I've seen planets that have 100 million colonists on them already. I'm gonna give a short lesson right now on why you should NEVER colonize a planet to 100 million people.

First, I pose a question. How many extra, and conveniently free, colonists does a maxed out planet make per turn. The answer is zero.

Now, how many new colonists could be produced by 100 million peeps if they were allowed to reproduce. The answer is 50k peeps. At 5 creds per peep, that's a value of 250k per turn for free. You don't even have to transport them from a special. They take care of that on their own.

Now imagine that you don't have 100 million peeps on one planet, but 50 million each on two planets. Now, each planet will make 25k peeps per turn and you'll get your 250k credits worth between the two planets.

Those two planets will take exactly 1387 turns to reproduce until they are full. You will gain free colonists, which means free money, on every one of those turns. If you had just the one planet, you'd get nothing for free.

Now imagine that you had spread those colonists over four planets instead of two. It would take each of those four planets 2774 turns to go from 25 million peeps to 100 million peeps. You'd be getting free people for that many turns. Ultimately you'll get an additional 300 million people for free. At 5 creds per person that's 1.5 billion credits for free. It's spread over 2774 turns, but it's still a damn lot of credits for free.

I assume you see where I'm going with this. Residual income is a gold mine. By spreading the same number of colonists over a greater number of planets you are increasing the total future amount of residual income. The only downside is that you have more planets to defend. The upside is that even if you lose one, you have other equally large planets to rely on for income.

Hence, the moral of this story is not to colonize to 100 million. It's dumb. I am going to suggest a maximum colonizing limit of 15-25 million colonists. That gives you a solid planet, but also gives you plenty of time for the planets to grow. That's just a suggestion. Use your own judgment.

When people send me questions, I'll answer them here. I'll reprint the question and answer it to the best of my ability.