BEGINNERS New to netrek? Read this. [ I put the most important article first. If you only read one article about netrek before playing, read that one. JCH ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To: jch+@CS.CMU.EDU Subject: clue outline for beginners Date: Sun, 06 Sep 92 17:13:18 -0400 From: Herbert_Enderton@MORIARTY.THEORY.CS.CMU.EDU Jonathan, if you want to archive this outline here's a revised version (more recent than the one I posted). This pretty much supercedes my previous posts with advice for beginners. --Bert Every once in a while I try to write down the half-dozen things I would want to be sure to tell a novice netrek player. Today I started to jot down an outline of the main things to learn, and I was surprised how many there are. So here's the outline, roughly in the order I think people should learn the stuff in. Hope it helps somebody. -- Red Shirt 1) How to start up the game A) Run "netrek -h " to connect to a given server. B) "telnet metaserver.ecst.csuchico.edu" to list servers and players counts. [replaced old reference to charon.amdahl.com -- JCH] i) Learn first on a nearly-empty server. a) Fight practice robots. ii) Play where you don't get much lag. iii) Avoid borg servers and non-standard servers at least at first. C) Peruse the "motd", the information shown by the server. D) Join the team with the second-largest number of players. i) Wait 15 seconds or so while the numbers fluctuate. E) Turn UDP on (bring up menu with `+'). i) If you get motionless torps cluttering your screen, try `='. F) Consider using an improved keymap even before learning the default one. i) `h' brings up a window showing most commands with the default keymap 2) Basic flying controls: A) Setting course. B) Setting speed. C) Locking onto planets D) Slow down when you need to turn, otherwise consider going at max warp. i) Each increase in speed halves your turning rate 3) Identifying friends and foes A) Know your race, and the enemy race. i) Declare peace with the two other races using the war window (`w') B) Galactic map i) See where you are. ii) See where the enemy ships are. iii) See where your teammates are. iv) See the cloakers, try to figure out who they are. a) Alert status indicates presence of nearby enemy ships. C) Tactical map i) Learn what the various ships look like. D) Player list i) Bring it up with `L' (or your .xtrekrc may do this automatically) ii) See who's who. iii) See who has kills. 4) Dodging torpedos. A) Friendly torpedos pass through you, but enemy torpedos hurt. B) Dodge by turning. C) Dodge by accelerating or decelerating. D) Seldom move straight at an enemy ship--makes it too hard to dodge. 5) Phasering A) Hit nearby enemies with your phasers. B) Learn how close you need to be to do non-negligible (25+) damage. C) Ships have different strength phasers. i) E.g. at a given distance a CA's phaser does 15 more than a DD's. 6) Firing torpedos A) Learn the "physics". i) Understand why chasing an enemy ship is so dangerous. B) Preferred targets are enemies who are flying towards you. C) Learn to lead torps so as to hit enemies who don't change course. D) Get a feel for the eight-torp limit. i) Learn how to abort your own torps when they miss. E) Good players will usually dodge your torpedos, so phasers are better. 7) Refueling and repairing. A) Read your fuel and damage gauges. i) If using the status graph, make sure you get a good .xtrekrc so you don't have to place it with each new ship. B) Show resources on maps. C) Identify fuel and repair planets. D) Identify peaceful planets that you can use, and won't shoot at you. E) Lock onto the planet you want to use, and go at maximum speed. F) Enter repair mode once you're in orbit around the planet. G) Be prepared to raise shields and dodge if an enemy comes close. H) You can repair and refuel out in empty space, but it's slow. 8) Using the message system. A) Show the message window with `?', splitting into four classes if desired. B) Learn how to send messages. i) With your mouse in the bottom of the two narrow windows below the galactic map, type `t' (for team messages) and the message. ii) You can also use `A' for messages to ALL, ship-number for messages to individuals, or F, R, K, or O to send to a team. C) Read and acknowledge team and personal messages. D) Try to notice messages as they come in. E) Be polite and friendly, but recognize that in a competitive game players probably won't take time to chat. 9) Understanding planet ownership and armies. A) See which planets are owned by your team, which are owned by theirs. B) See how many armies there are on a planet by pointing and hitting info. C) Notice the planet destroyed and planet taken over messages. i) Learn the names of the planets. D) Watch your team lose planets. Wish you could help them gain planets. 10) Bombing A) Learn what planets are good to bomb. i) Only bomb enemy planets (not third-race planets) ii) Only bomb when it's t-mode (4 on 4 or whatever) iii) Can only bomb planets with 5 or more armies iv) Best to bomb undefended planets B) Lock onto a planet to bomb and get there as fast as possible. C) Enemy planets damage you when you're within a certain range. i) Keep your shields up when close, unless actually bombing. ii) It's okay strategically to let the planet kill you. a) Better that than to nurse a crippled ship. D) Once in orbit, hit `b' to commence bombing. E) Watch the bombardier's messages to know when you're done (4 or fewer). i) When done, raise your shields and get out of there. a) Ideally you've picked out your next target, and can immediately lock onto it and hit max-warp. F) Cloak when trying to orbit an enemy planet, so you can't be tractored off G) Use an assault ship for bombing planets with many armies (or exactly 5) i) AS bombs 0 or 2-4 armies per half second instead of 0 or 1-3. H) Use a scout ship for running around bombing deep in enemy space. I) Even if all the enemy planets are "flat" (4 or fewer armies on each), it's useful to wait back near them so that when they "pop" to 5 or more you can race to bomb the armies before enemies beam them up. 11) Taking planets A) Learn each ship's carrying capacity. i) Most ships can carry two armies for each kill they currently have ii) Assault ships can carry three armies per kill iii) Maximum load of 2 for SC, 5 for DD, 6 for BB, 10 for CA, 20 for AS iv) One usually shouldn't carry more than 6 armies. B) Learn beam up and beam down commands for picking up armies. C) When you beam up armies, send one distress call to inform your team. D) When you're carrying, the enemies will be out to get you. Avoid them. E) Lock onto an undefended enemy planet, cloak, orbit it, bomb it if it has 5 or more, and then beam down all your armies. F) Don't dilly-dally. The team wins which takes planets fastest. G) Some planets are better to take than others. i) Fuel planets are obviously good. ii) Agricultural worlds produce armies faster. A) Get info on each planet so you know which are "Agri". B) They produce armies very fast when they're at less than 4, so don't expect to take one over in two trips. iii) There are other strategic considerations, but don't fret over them A) This is a common source of pointless arguments 12) Using tractors and pressors A) When fighting i) Tractor to close with an enemy ship, esp. when mutual death is good ii) Pressor to dodge torpedos (moving yourself away) iii) Tractor enemy into your torp stream B) To pull enemy out of orbit i) Instantly stops them from bombing, beaming, fueling. C) Don't leave tractors on too long or you'll run out of fuel. D) Each ship-type has a different tractor-beam range and strength. 13) Mechanics of cloaking A) Cloakers don't appear on the tactical map, so watch the galactic B) Enemy cloakers within yellow- or red-alert show as ?? on the galactic map i) Also they're shown if they orbit a planet they don't own ii) When it's not t-mode they're always shown C) Friendly cloakers show as ?? on the galactic map always D) The position of the ?? is slightly randomized E) You can't fire weapons when cloaked i) You must come fully uncloaked before firing F) You can't use tractors or phasers when cloaked ii) But you can use them the instant you start to uncloak G) You can bomb, beam, raise shields, detonate torps, and many other useful useful things while cloaked. H) A cloaker can't be tractored, but if a ship is tractored and then cloaks, the tractor beam stays on it. I) A phaser hit will reveal the location of a cloaker on the tactical map. 14) Attacking enemy army-carriers (aka ogging) A) Know which enemies can carry by examining the player list. B) Track potential carriers on the galactic to see if they pick up armies. C) Predict what planet they'll go to. Try to intercept them. i) Appear in front of them so they have the most trouble dodging. D) Cloaking on the approach sometimes helps i) To achieve surprise against unwary opponents ii) To help avoid getting killed as you approach E) Close in and fire quickly. Use tractors, phasers, torpedos, and your own ship's explosion to kill the target. Mutual destruction is good. F) Always try to dodge torpedos, so you can live long enough to kill. i) Don't fly exactly straight at the target, or he'll kill you easily G) You can defend a fuel planet against a cloaked enemy by orbiting it and firing. i) Otherwise, many players will stay cloaked and dodge until you're out of fuel, and then orbit and take the planet. H) Enemies are most vulnerable when in orbit i) They can't dodge well ii) You know more or less where they are iii) So fire at the planet while they're trying to bomb or beam down iv) You can also sometimes nail ships while they're beaming armies up 15) Defending armies against bombers A) Look to kill them as they start to orbit. B) Chasing bombers is usually futile. Better to stay near the armies you want to guard. i) Tell your team which planet you're defending, so they know not to duplicate your effort. C) Killing bombers is sometimes a good way to get a kill or two, but then switch to planet-taking or shuttling. Don't lose sight of the goal. D) Shuttling armies from outlying planets to your home world (or to your starbase) is sometimes a good way to save them temporarily. 16) Detonating enemy torpedos A) Learn the detonation range (somewhat server-dependent). B) Usually wise to detonate any torpedos that would otherwise hit you. C) Important to detonate if very near to other ships. i) Torpedos you detonate won't hurt your teammates at all. ii) Torpedos that hit you and explode will. D) Especially useful when orbiting. 17) Clearing planets for army-carriers on your team. A) Attack enemies in the vicinity of the target planet i) Kill them or drive them off ii) Sometimes enough just to distract them by your presence. iii) Try to detonate torpedos that would hit the carrier. B) Attack ahead of your carrier. C) Once your carrier is in orbit about the target planet, avoid making violent torpedo and ship explosions in that area. D) Communication is important, so the carrier knows when you are going to crash the planet, and you know when he's ready for it. 18) Helping army-carriers in other ways A) Intercepting oggers. Get between your friend and the attacker, and shoot the attacker as he tries to get by you. i) Ideally you want to cripple but not kill the ogger. If you kill him he just comes back with a fresh ship. ii) On the other hand if you kill him, you can go pick up armies and present him with a second target to worry about. B) When your army-carrier is approaching to attack the enemy home world, don't kill enemy ships except those near the home world. C) Decoys and double-attacks. Attack or pretend to attack a planet other than the planet your friend is planning to take, and hope to draw the enemies towards you. Stay cloaked so they don't know who you are. 19) Helping to take break "last planet stands" A) Teamwork becomes essential. Use the message window. B) You want one or two carriers, and the rest of the team should help by doing a well-timed run at the planet (clearing, decoying, etc). C) Synchronization is important, so set up roughly in a circle around the target and charge when the carrier calls `go'. D) Avoid engaging the enemy anywhere but right within shooting range of the target planet. You must get there to be of any help. i) Exception: if no one on your team has kills, get one. ii) Another exception: if your carrier is retreating to refuel and/or pick up armies, he'll probably appreciate some cover. 20) Refitting to another ship-type at your home world A) You have to mostly repair and refuel before it will let you refit. B) If you have 2+ kills and refit to a BB, CA, or DD, you get plasma. i) There's a special command for firing plasma. ii) Plasma torps costs a lot of fuel, but are big and track. iii) They can be exploded by phasers. Best used against cloakers. iv) When they explode, they damage everybody nearby. 21) Starbases A) Each team gets one starbase. If it dies, there's 20 or 30 minute wait. B) Starbases are strong, but slow, and they can't bomb or take planets. i) Mainly they serve to control a small region of space. ii) Also they can hold up to 25 armies. C) Killing one usually requires a simultaneous attack by several ships coming in from different angles. D) You can lock on a starbase and dock to refuel, repair, and beam armies. i) A tractor beam or two facilitates fast docking. 22) Genocide A) When a race's last planet gets destroyed they're genocided. B) When re-entering after being genocided, don't join the victors. i) Instead join the race diagonally opposite from your old race. C) When a race owns every planet in three quadrants, they win. i) At that point the galaxy is reset and all players are ejected. 23) Team organization; Roles A) A good team often has 2 scout bombers, 3 oggers (who also clear planets), and 3 planet-takers (who also kill bombers). B) Volunteer for the role you like, and tell your team. C) Most players don't like being told what to do, but they like knowing what you're planning to do so they can coordinate with you. 24) Places to get other information A) rec.games.netrek newsgroup i) The FAQ answers are posted regularly. B) jch's archive i) ftp gs69.sp.cs.cmu.edu, anonymous C) Ask veteran players for help ------------------------------ Newsgroups: alt.games.xtrek From: hde+@CS.CMU.EDU (Herbert Enderton) Subject: Advice for beginning players Date: Wed, 16 Oct 91 03:38:10 GMT Play first on a server that has nobody on it. Read the instructions. Once you learn to fly and fire, you can send in practice robots, and learn to dodge their shots and lead them accurately with your torpedos. When you get into a real game, be sure you put up the message windows (with the `?' command). It's important that you read the messages from your teammates, if any. Sending messages is a little tricky; get somebody to show you how. Be sure to "declare peace" with the two neutral races, using the `w' command to pop up the appropriate window. Shoot at any nearby enemies (and don't shoot at ships that aren't enemies). Look at the long range map (the one on the right) to figure out where everybody is. Cloaked ships show up as ?? on the long range display. The enemy ships are easiest to kill when they fly towards you, and you're most likely to die when you fly towards them. Figure out which planets are yours and which are theirs. The commands `i', `B', and `V' are useful for displaying information about planets. When you run low on fuel, go to a friendly fuel planets (lock on to it with the `l' command.) Bomb enemy planets when it's "tournament mode". The strategic objective of the game is to take over planets, but that's an advanced topic. I assume that as a beginner you'll just want to blow people up. -- Red Shirt ------------------------------ Newsgroups: alt.games.xtrek From: hde+@CS.CMU.EDU (Herbert Enderton) Subject: More advice Date: Wed, 16 Oct 91 04:09:19 GMT (These are the things that separate the decent players from the clueless ones.) Read your messages often. Bomb. In the beginning of a game, when they have many armies, play an assault ship. Shoot enemy cloakers. Get into enemy space. -- Red Shirt ------------------------------ From: paulsen@eniac.seas.upenn.edu (Brian Paulsen ) Newsgroups: alt.games.xtrek Subject: Newbie mistakes to stop doing Date: 22 Feb 92 19:03:43 GMT With new people coming on, I thought I should post this in the hopes that some people listen and learn. A) the 'c' button cloaks you. DON'T push this button next to your home planet. When you become clueful, MAYBE you should do this, but until then don't ever consider it. When you are near your LPS (last planet stand), do not cloak near your home planet. B) Cloak when you bomb. If anything, you are harder to hit. C) This goes with B. If an enemy doesn't cloak when orbiting your planet, use your tractors/pressors to push him off the planet. D) If you fly near an enemy planet with armies, please bomb it. E) If your side is hurting for armies, any planets nearby should be bombed down to 5 armies by a non-AS (non-Assault Ship). THEN use an AS to bomb it. It's amazing how many clueful players don't realize this. They see a planet with armies, usually 6, and say don't bomb it unless in AS. However, in their defense, it does take a lot of typing to tell what one should do. F) The point of dogfighting (in strategic terms, not fun value) is to get kills. The only reason to have kills is to get plasmas and take planets. My priority goes to taking planets. So, once you have kills, you should start taking planets. If you want to be a real addition to your team, one that people are happy when you show up, try to take planets whenever possible. BUT, also realize that Admiral Veteran is probably better than you, and probably has a better chance of taking a planet than you do. So, if armies are scarce, send a message telling him that you are taking the armies unless he wants them. Usually, Admiral Veteran can escort you to the planet. But, if he wants them, let him have them. If armies are not scarce, then take as many planets as possible. G) When possible, ftp to gs69.sp.cs.cmu.edu, and read the hints.Z article and whatever other articles catch your attention. These articles were written by some of the best in the game and has volumes of wisdom. H) Please read team messages. And learn how to send them. If people send messages such as "My teammates are f*cking idiots," you should take offense. Send messages back telling him this. For instance, I send these messages because I know no one reads team messages, so I don't have to worry about hurting feelings. People who complain that there teammates are clueless, and then don't tell them what to do if they get asked for help, are jerks. I) For the clueful, if you can think of anything else, post it. Rear Adm. deathstar ------------------------------ Newsgroups: alt.games.xtrek From: spot@CS.CMU.EDU (Scott Draves) Subject: Re: Newbie mistakes to stop doing Date: Sun, 23 Feb 92 01:30:28 GMT i agree with brian's remarks, except: Brian> B) Cloak when you bomb. don't bother cloaking if there aren't any enemy around, of course. Brian> E) If your side is hurting for armies, any planets nearby Brian> should be bombed down to 5 armies by a non-AS (non-Assault Brian> Ship). THEN use an AS to bomb it. i think the extra confusion and time spent trying to do this more than offsets the benefit. except in a LPS. Brian> F) The point of dogfighting (in strategic terms, not fun value) Brian> is to get kills. that's one reason, there are others. at cmu, the technique of army defense is getting popular. here, as soon as a planet pops, a defender rushes to the planet, even if they have no kill. if they beat the bomber to the army, an honest-to-god dogfight ensues. dogfighting is also important in the 3rd race's space. Brian> The only reason to have kills is to get plasmas and take Brian> planets. My priority goes to taking planets. i agree, and would make an even stronger statement: people with plasma are usually clueless. you spend a lot of time flying home and refiting. this goes for switching into an AS for planet taking also. i think it takes too long, and it broadcasts your intensions like nothing else. Brian> So, once you have kills, you should start taking planets. if you have a kill, and you are near some armies, and your designated planet scum isn't going to get them *really* soon, go ahead and pick them up. drop them wherever is meaningful: enemy planet, your SB, reinforce, xfer to your planet scum. it's usually a bad thing for a team to have more than 1 person collecting armies. it's a duplication of effort. Brian> H) Please read team messages. And learn how to send them. i totally agree, and simply repeat this for emphasis. Mergatroid ------------------------------ From: amrk@troi.cc.rochester.edu (Andrew Markiel) Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek Subject: Some hints for beginners Date: 7 Jul 92 06:26:07 GMT While playing the base for hours on end Saturday night, I saw some things, some beginner mistakes that I thought I'd mention, in the hopes that people would read about them here and learn. I try to keep the clue level moving upward. 1) If you want to get somewhere, move it. For example, if you're in a cruiser, don't fly to the front at warp 5, fly there at warp 7 (or more). Yes, you'll burn some fuel, but when you get to where you're going you can slow to warp 5 and refuel, while being in position to do things. It's strategically inefficient not to take advantage of the refuel capability of your ship. And besides, what are you saving all that fuel for anyway? 2) Unfortunately, I know what you're saving that fuel for: so you can miss more people with torps. You can generally figure the clue level of a game by seeing the hit frequency of the weapons: beginners tend to miss a lot. Granted, it takes practice to shoot well. But there are some guidlines that help: a) unless you're planning to kill or cripple your enemy, don't bother shooting at him. Lobbing a few torps as you fly by is inefficient, for the same reason as before: even if you get lucky enough to hit, all you're doing is giving the other guy's engineers something to do...he'll be completely repaired before one of your teammates can take advantage of the damage, so you're just using your fuel to let the enemy use his repair capability. b) Learn the ranges of your weapons. Again and again I see sprays of long range torps that are just a waste of fuel, because even if your aim is perfect on a non-dodging target, random spreading will keep you from getting more than about one hit (which does no good, as before). In general, don't shoot at a charging target more than 2 inches away, or 1 to 1 1/2 inches for targets moving perpendicular to the line joining you. Don't bother shooting at targets moving away from you, since they'll be trivial to dodge. Against targets who dodge well (forgive me if I stick myself in this category), lop another half inch off the torp range and be prepared to dodge aggressively. And learn to use your phasers properly: don't fire outside of the 20-30 damage range (which you can learn through practice, and watching that little window right below the galactic map which tells you how much phaserdamage you just did). On ships that are doomed but can still wiggle a bit, forget the torps and phaser the guy down: phasers are supposed to be your auto-hit weapons. I remember once I had softened up a base ogger and had him in tractor lock about two inches away, and three of my teammtes came up and fired 24 torps, which *all* missed. All they had to do was fire three phasers, and the guy would have been toast. You may wonder why I spend so much time harping on this. It's because fuel efficiency is such an important part of the game. Consider the difference between a) get a kill, pick up 2 armies from an adjacent planet, race to an enemy planet at maxwarp, cloak as you go in and beam down both armies. as opposed to b) get a kill, fly to a fuel planet, refuel, kill the same guy you killed before again, fly to a planet with armies, get ogged because you have 2 kills. All the time you spend refueling is wasted time where you aren't doing anything except letting the enemy get back into position. Teams which waste fuel tend to lose space control (you're retreating too often) and lose out on all sorts of attack opportunities. It's like spending half of the game not playing. Your strategic resources are fuel and armies, and you can't afford to waste either. 3) I know this is an old one, but *don't* sit behind your base and lob torps and *plasma* (I'm not joking...) at oggers. Any of your weapons which hit near the base do damage to both base and ogger. Your base will *not* be pleased at taking more damage from teammates than from the enemy. 4) And finally, consider trying the fine art of subtlety. If you do the same thing over and over, you completely lose the advantage of surprise. You're not going to get a good og with me holding my mouse over your ship waiting for you to uncloak. Try something adaptive, something original. Even if it's bad, you just might get an enemy to bite. If you can't kill me, at least come up with something to cause me grief. Turn on the brain...sometimes I get the feeling people are playing without any cerebral functioning, and it really shows. -Grey Elf ------------------------------ Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 19:38:59 -0400 From: "Timothy C. Worsley" Subject: Fooling the into thinking you have a clue. One thing that a lot of new players want to know is, "How can I convince people that I'm not clueless?" It's a pretty good question. It sucks to be spotted as clueless, because your teammates will insult you, and your enemies will try to scum kills off of you. So here are some general tips to keep people from thinking you're clueless. General 1) Keep moving. Nothing gives away a total lack of clue like not moving. Moving at the right speed is important too. When you don't need to turn, maxwarp is good. When you do need to turn (like when you want to fight) slow down to about 3 for BB, 4 for CA or AS, 5 for DD, or 6 for SC. As you get better, you will end up finding lots of other speeds to be useful. 2) Look at the galactic map often -- every time you have a chance. You have NO EXCUSE for not looking at it as soon as you come in every time. If you see a cloaker nearby, check your alert status to see if there is an enemy nearby, or it it's a friendly cloaker. 3) Read the player list so you have some idea of who's dangerous, and check the message board. Again, you have no excuse for not doing this whenever you've just died. 4) Read the archives, and R.G.N.. Not everything you will read is necessarily right, but you can at least get some idea for people's thoughts. if you're really unsure, post. 5) Always ID all the planets to see which at Agri. 6) Play for a few hundred hours. Nothing fools people like seeing your name a lot :) Fooling your Foes: 1) Rebind your keys so that you can use all of the useful ones easily with your non-mouse hand. MAKE SURE to rebind "tractor" and "det own torps". 2) If you know that you are going to die, charge your opponent, and make her pay for it. This is a good rule of thumb. Crippling opponents is often better, but very difficult to get right, so stick with the basics at first. 3) Learn your phaser ranges. 4) If you are phasering, you should always be tractoring or pressoring. 5) Watch your fuel. If you are flying fast, watch e-temp too. 6) If your foe does something really obnoxious, remember it, and try to learn it. 7) If you do something really well, remember it, and look for your opponent to do it. 8) If you are going to die, try to give the kill to someone who can't use it (SB, ship with many kills, crippled ship). Fooling your friends: 1) Read the team bboard. Respond if it seems appropriate. If you have nothing better to do, help your friends do whatever they do. This may include Ogging a base, escorting, or clearing a planet. 2) If you and a friend are both going to get hit by torps, det them. 3) Avoid the enemy base unless you're Ogging it. 4) If armies are scarce, ask where they should be put. If they're common, drop on any unguarded non-agri. You should try to pick planets which are as close to home as possible, lower on armies already, or which have better resources. If you have enough to actually take a planet, this is obviously better than reducing it, especially if it is Agri. 5) Don't be afraid to ask for help. You may not always (or even often) get it, but it doesn't hurt to try. Distress whenever you pick up. If you want your friends to find you quickly, flash your cloak on and off (WARNING: this may also alert foes). 6) Be bold. ZZnew guy ------------------------------ Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek From: markiel@callisto.pas.rochester.edu (Andrew Markiel) Subject: Re: Request: Tips on tactics/strategy for newbie players... Date: Wed, 24 Nov 93 13:18:52 GMT Jeffrey M. Trimm (trimm@acsu.buffalo.edu) wrote: > Anyways, I keep reading about "clue" players vs "non-clue" players. What > exactly do "newbie" players do that's wrong and what do "clue" players do > that's right? I think the single most important thing that clue players do, and beginners *don't* do, is go where the armies are. This is important, because if you just walk up and try to fight me, I can go anywhere in the galaxy I want. I can run and run in circles all day, and you can never gain an advantage. However, armies don't run; they sit on planets. So, if you go to where the armies are, then to stop you I have to go to the same place, I can't run forever anymore. If you get to the armies before I do, then you have the combat advantage. You can learn just about everything from following armies, because all of the clue players will show up where the armies are, and you can just watch what they do and emulate them. Plus, watching the galactic to see where the armies are trains you to pay attention. If there aren't any convenient armies to deal with, the best algorithm is to keep moving away from your homeworld and towards the enemy homeworld. You usually don't want to charge, since this gets you splattered quickly, but keep pressing forward as fast as possible. If you can get to enemy spce, then you're in good position for when the armies do appear. -Grey Elf markiel@callisto.pas.rochester.edu ------------------------------ End of BEGINNERS ****************