Here's an idea. How 'bout everyone tell us a strategy? I'll tell you some in the morning. I'm tired right now. See ya.

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Feel the Jive
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(Insert cool quote here)

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When you are first starting out, and have a small, fast ship that can't carry large cargos but can make jumps in short time periods:
1. Accept missions that are "rush" since you can get there in time easily, and they pay more.
2. Accept passengers that are going into dangerous territory, since they will pay much more to get there than most passenger missions (but learn to land quickly before you get too shot up--select planet, auto pilot there and keep hitting the (l)and key). It helps to have an IFF decoder and an afterburner to avoid renegades, too.
3. Try to avoid making enemies and choosing sides at first, but take "emergency" or "relief" type missions because sometimes they pay well and/or raise your status.
4. If by some chance you enter a system where there is a battle going on, and there is only one badly wounded ship left on one side: IF that ship is of a government that you don't mind offending, add your firepower against it. if you are lucky, you will deliever the final blow, and raise you combat status. But make sure you don't get caught in the crossfire.
5. Don't buy too many outfits if you are planning to upgrade your ship soon. Also, stick with a small ship (under 100 tons) until you really need a big one, because otherwise some of the missions will be impossible to complete in time (because big ships take more days to make jumps).
Clare

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Well, I'm a fan of the turret-sheild-armor battle approach. Of course, the origional setup is very expensive, requiring millions to get a ship capable of doing it, but basically it is free after that, and can pay good money back (from boarded ships).

Basically, it works like this: get all the sheild/armor upgrades you can, plus as many turrets as you can (I prefer Neutron). Then, if you are fighting a ship with lots of secondary weapons, it might be wise to fly around a while and let them waste them (you gotta be able to outrun or at least outsmart them). When the time is ripe, move in for the kill. With the right upgrades, any ship from Crescent warship on up can win against (nearly) any other ship using this strategy.

Hmm, other than that... it's a generally good idea to avoid making enemies until you can afford to do so. So basically, until you have a combat-worthy ship, don't go rescuing defectors.

To build up combat rating, I always go and haul ass on renegades. It pays well too! Basically, go to a pocket of heavy renegade activity, and go out on hunting missions. Disable renegade ships and board them. Generally, you want to just take the credits, and then abort cause otherwise the ship might explode. After you abort, just hose it down with lasers, and you just improved both your combat rating, and your status with all neighboring governments!

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Don't don't don' let's start. This is the worst part. To believe for all the world that you're my precious little girl. Don't don't don' let's start. I've got a big heart, and I don't get around how you... get around.

I get some money doing commodity runs in southern UE space. After I get a decent ship I get after the renegades. Killing renegades is fun, gives money, raises status and only make renegade planets mad at you.

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Sorry I havn't answered sooner. The connection to Ambrosia always timed out before I could respond.

So lets do it!

Begining

Money:
Take rush missions or at least 6 ferry passenger missions. I don't recomend taking passengers to Proxima. Though you do get 15,000 credits, when you're in a shuttle, you're to weak to handle renegade attacks.

Outfits:
In the shuttle, get two fuel tanks to make longer jumps, and two fuel scoops if you run out of fuel. Go to Pax and get an IFF decoder, and density scanner. Get as many regional maps as possible so you don't get lost in the vast universe.

Missions:
I recomend going to the bar at earth as soon as you start to get UE missions. Also, I recomend going to Mira early in the game to get the alien trade routes.

Later...:
After getting a better ship, I recomend fighting human renegades in the Proxima. You can rack up a lot of cash by taking the missions that are worth 100,000 credits. Side with a Strand after getting a strong ship. Don't make enemies early in the game. Have fun!
Combat

Passing strategy:
Just about all AI uses this strategy. It is best used with turrets and secondary weapons. Go towards enemies firing turrets. While passing over the enemy, turn. If turrets are out of range, fire secondary weapon. Move towards enemy while firing turrets. Repeat until destroyed.

Peer pressure technique:
When on missions where you have help (like destroying voinian convoys, saving colonies, and raiding planets) you have two options. Wussy technique (below), or the Peer pressure technique. All ships have the same targeting system. When shooting at a ship, that ship is hostile against you. When someone else shoots at a ship that is hostile against you, that ship is then hostile at the other ship. This is the basis of the Peer pressure technique. Basicly, attack the ship everyone else is attacking. That ship is then confused and actually won't attack you! This cuts considerably down on damage to your ship. You also get things destroyed faster.

Wussy technique:
In the scenario above, there is another technique you can use. Stay away from all major ships and only attack small ones that are hostile against you. Your "buddies" will destroy most of the major ships. That way, when your buddies are all dead, you have enough ammo and shields to take on the rest alone.

Ring 'o fire technique:
This strategy is for attacking aradas, and voinian heavy fighters/interceptors. They all have heavy hitting rockets and frontal firing cannons. That means, that you can't get hurt by them as long as you aren't in front of them. Thus circle them and fire without getting in front of them. Hence the name. Theoreticlly this can work against helians as well, but it only works when it is out of needles or you have ECM system or needle jammer. This technique is mostly for if you have a smaller ship.

Trade

Hatulii strategy:
Capture or hire ships that have a large cargo capacity. Go to the Hatulii system. I think you buy equipment from either Their or Gribin, and sell it at the other planet while buying metal their. Sell it at the other planet and repeat. If you have it, the cloaking device works wonders in this place. I'm not sure what you buy or what planet you get it from but look at the comodity exchange on both planets, and whichever is the lowest for one planet an higher on the other, buy cheapest and sell to highest.

Map-Jump technique:
This works if you are in bad territory (like renegade). Click on your map. Select your next jump. Jump. As soon as you enter system, click map. Select your next jump. Jump. Repeat until at destination. This way you get minimal damage (if any) and you get to your destination quickly.

Hope you like these strategies! When you use them, think of me.

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Feel the Jive
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(Insert cool quote here)

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Quote

Originally posted by Jive 320:
**
Map-Jump technique:
This works if you are in bad territory (like renegade). Click on your map. Select your next jump. Jump. As soon as you enter system, click map. Select your next jump. Jump. Repeat until at destination. This way you get minimal damage (if any) and you get to your destination quickly.
**

Ever heard of the course plotting function? Hold down the shift key and click the systems you want to travel to in consecutive order. Then, hold down the jump key and keep it there until you arrive in the end system (or you run out of fuel...).

-- Cinga

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Quote

Originally posted by Cinga:
**Ever heard of the course plotting function? Hold down the shift key and click the systems you want to travel to in consecutive order. Then, hold down the jump key and keep it there until you arrive in the end system (or you run out of fuel...).

-- Cinga

**

I have heard of it but I wasn't sure how to do it. That's why I just wrote the map-jump strategy :).

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Just press "alt" and click the route.
Tip, if you are in a renegade system or a hostile system, and bribed the planet so that you could land, (all ships will be hostile when you leave the planet) when you leave, press the jump-key, as soon as you are at safe distance you will jump. Saves about 1sec.

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If it´s quality software you can read "Made with Macintosh" -Shadow

for money, avoid frieght missions with shuttlecraft, just get as many passenger missions as you can, they have no time limit and take very little space. once you have enough for a heavy freighter, buy one. find a good trade route with medical supplies in safe UE space and go back and forth. also its handy to hire escorts when you have the money. once you get bored of trading, get a big nasty ship and whoop renegades.
this also works for getting a higher combat rating...

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How do you bribe a planet to land?

Escorts are evil. Don't use them unless you need to, or you have a constant and steady cash flow. Even if you capture them, you may become an offender to other races as soon as you boars them. Plus, at the begining, you won't have near enough cash to do any escorts.

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Feel the Jive
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(Insert cool quote here)

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Here's my begin beginners/anyone strategy on getting money.....

1. Use yr ship to get about 25,000 cash.
2. Rent a Freighter?(which ever holds the most cargo at the start) on Earth and load up with all the metal you can carry.
3.Fly to Centauri, sell all your metal, by all the food you can, fly back to Earth, sell all yr food and repeat.
4. Keep repeating till you can afford to have 6 Freighters (all u can rent), running loads between Earth and Centauri. When you have all 6 ships and yours loaded up and dumping between the two, you'll be making over 100,000 per round trip (after paying for paying for the services of the ships each jump)

Easiest way to make money in the beginning that i found. Quite boring though...

Quote

Originally posted by Jive 320:
**How do you bribe a planet to land?
**

Select the planet by asking to land, or by selecting it using the number keys. Make sure you don't have any ships selected also. Press Y. There's an option to "offer bribe."

Quote

Originally posted by Jive 320:
**
Escorts are evil. Don't use them unless you need to, or you have a constant and steady cash flow. Even if you capture them, you may become an offender to other races as soon as you boars them. Plus, at the begining, you won't have near enough cash to do any escorts.

**

Firstly, I want to say that you shouldn't hire escorts under most circumstances. For hardcore traders, I'm sure there's a profit to be made, but I never hire mine.

Secondly, if a race is already pissed at you, why should you care? I have a full compliment of escorts from the Zidagar and the Igazdra, because I'm with the Azdagari. They can get madder, that's fine with me. They hated me to begin with.

Oh, I should mention that in order to do this, you need a ship with a big crew and lots of sheilds. The program measures those two factors against those on the ship you are boarding to determine capture probability. Sheild upgrades help a lot, and also the marines do too.

Finally, Voinian ships make awful escorts. They are all way too slow to get there in time to save your ass.

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Everything is catching, yes, everything is catching on fire.

Oh, and regarding escorts, I just found a great way to dominate a planet.

Here's how I did it. I'm in a UE Cruiser. My escorts are four Igazras and two Zidaras. Then, I got the following outfit:

Four sheild upgrades, dospect armor, five phase turrets, RCS, Engine and accelleration upgrades, Azadari upgrade, three mass expansions, and some other stuff (IFF Decoder, fuel scoop, etc.). That's just my base outfit. The real important part is that now I have 180 tons to work with, enough to get the Azadari Bay and six Azadaris to go in it (I also have five UE Fighters that come with the ship).

Ok, now I'm ready to rock and roll. I go to the planet I want to dominate (Pirate planets in my case), fly about a screen and a half away from the planet, and deploy all my fighters. Then I demand tribute from the planet and the fun begins (well, actually it's still pretty tedious, but faster than it might be otherwise).

As ships come at me, I hit "r" to select the closest target, and "f" to direct my fighters to attack them. The ships will never attack the fighters in their mad dash to get at me, and most of them die before reaching me at all! The strays who manage to run the gauntlet aren't hard to pick off with my own turret fire. The other six escorts also help, but it's the fighters that really make the difference.

If I feel like too many are getting through, I just back up a ways more, giving my fighters more time to get at a ship from the time it leaves the planet to the time it gets to me.

I have dominated three pirate planets so far with this technique, and plan on doing more. The time it takes to do it is cut drastically down (as low as 15 minutes), and it's totally safe. Just make ships run the gauntlet, and you can be dominating before you know it!

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Everything is catching, yes, everything is catching on fire.

Quote

Originally posted by MisterT:
**Firstly, I want to say that you shouldn't hire escorts under most circumstances. For hardcore traders, I'm sure there's a profit to be made, but I never hire mine.

Secondly, if a race is already pissed at you, why should you care? I have a full compliment of escorts from the Zidagar and the Igazdra, because I'm with the Azdagari. They can get madder, that's fine with me. They hated me to begin with.

Oh, I should mention that in order to do this, you need a ship with a big crew and lots of sheilds. The program measures those two factors against those on the ship you are boarding to determine capture probability. Sheild upgrades help a lot, and also the marines do too.

Finally, Voinian ships make awful escorts. They are all way too slow to get there in time to save your ass.

**

Well, I just don't like the way you have to manage them and pay them and such. As for capturing things like Zidaras and stuff, it's hard to do. I heard that if you get the marines it's alot easier but still, it's too much work to disable a ship like an Idgadzra if you have a sort-of weak ship. Personally, I just stay away from escorts. If there is a job to be done, you can do it yourself. Use 'em if you want, but a word of caution. You have to be good about handleing them. You have to have a lot of cash and you have to know what you're doing.

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Feel the Jive
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(Insert cool quote here)

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Acually all you have to do is get a UE Cruiser and you can capture anything in the crecent (right now I have 4 Igadzras and 2 Adzigara(sp) Warships as captured escorts.)

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Confucius say: "Man who stand on toilet, is high on pot."

Quote

Originally posted by Servack:
**Acually all you have to do is get a UE Cruiser and you can capture anything in the crecent:) (right now I have 4 Igadzras and 2 Adzigara(sp) Warships as captured escorts.)

**

Yep. Exactly. Especially with four sheild upgrades, since it's a function of your ship's sheilds and crew versus theirs. The marines help a lot too, of course, but the UE Cruiser is the best ship for capturing that I have seen, having both massive sheilding and crew.

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Everything is catching, yes, everything is catching on fire.

Quote

Originally posted by Jive 320:
Map-Jump technique:
This works if you are in bad territory (like renegade). Click on your map. Select your next jump. Jump. As soon as you enter system, click map. Select your next jump. Jump. Repeat until at destination. This way you get minimal damage (if any) and you get to your destination quickly.

A little faster: use "Shift"-click to plan a multiple-jump journey in advance on the map. Then just hit "J" when you enter a system en route.

Even faster: use the "Lightning Jump" plugin for instant jumps! Great if you're flying a large heavy ship.

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Xopher

"I dreamt I was a butterfly, but when I awoke, I thought I might actually be a butterfly, dreaming that I was a man."
-- Chuang-tze (330 BCE)

Quote

Originally posted by Xopher:
**A little faster: use "Shift"-click to plan a multiple-jump journey in advance on the map. Then just hit "J" when you enter a system en route.

Even faster: use the "Lightning Jump" plugin for instant jumps! Great if you're flying a large heavy ship.

**

Yeah I just found out a few days ago. Thanks anyway!

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Feel the Jive
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Got a question?
Visit the Questions post on the board

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Here's a good tip:
If you have a slow ship, and you need to do missions like rescue the defector and rescue the scoutship pilots, hire some UE freighters, and fly in between them. Any rocket or Neutron cannon fire will simply hit them, and give you enought time to make it to the station/planet.
Or another: if you like vlose range combat, and you have an UE Cruiser or another large ship, buy as much Defense Pods and launchers if you can, and sit on top on your enemy while dumping the pods. Two or three volleys of a ship ecuiped with the max amount of DP's can disable a crescent warship. Very usefull in the Zachit missions, but don't try this on Voinians!

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The Independent Government needs you in the uEVO RPG!

http://www.oxy-soft.com/uevo/

http://independentgov.homepage.com/

Shave the wales...

Quote

Originally posted by Thimoty:
**Here's a good tip:
If you have a slow ship, and you need to do missions like rescue the defector and rescue the scoutship pilots, hire some UE freighters, and fly in between them. Any rocket or Neutron cannon fire will simply hit them, and give you enought time to make it to the station/planet.
Or another: if you like vlose range combat, and you have an UE Cruiser or another large ship, buy as much Defense Pods and launchers if you can, and sit on top on your enemy while dumping the pods. Two or three volleys of a ship ecuiped with the max amount of DP's can disable a crescent warship. Very usefull in the Zachit missions, but don't try this on Voinians!

**

Good idea :).

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Feel the Jive
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I'm in a smiling mood today

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