Newbie Strategy

[Indenture]

I'm an unabashed newbie at BC3K, but as I seem to be doing okay, I thought I'd speak up and maybe get a thread started on opening strategies. I'm trying to figure out what works best and, as a result, put some thought and analysis into what my priorities should be in the beginning of a free flight game. I'm sharing with you all in hope of feedback on how to do either of those better.

Starting with the second part, it seems my biggest short term goal is to get better gear and larger stockpiles of expendables. This is because my new crew is relatively dumb to start and they'll need all the help they can get to live long enough to practice their jobs and improve AI.

Okay, if upgrading is my first goal, then I need money. Starting off with a pittance, I need trade goods to sell to get money.... That's my analysis of where I start off.

As for how to get this done, the first thing I did was head out to a debris field and pick up everything, using all 4 shuttles on cargosweeps. Head back to GalcomHQ, sell everything I picked up. Rinse, lather, repeat. Eventually, I had about 1.5 credits and I started to trade deflector arrays to gazer in Pluto, and pick up launch arrays and medibays to ferry back to galcom. I've been doing that for a couple hours now and I'm up to 35 million.

Obviously, that can't be TOO bad a strategy: I have more money, I'm not dead or court-martialed, my crew is alive, my cruiser is undamaged, I have no violations.

Can anyone think of better way to do this? and WHAT constitutes better? faster? or a method that improves something I'm not even thinking of?

Finally, I'm thinking of where to go from here. My first thought is to hop on out and see more of the universe than good old Sol. I guess I think its safer than patrolling inside the system. My thought is to do something just a little dangerous so I can learn combat and start improving crew AI. Suggestions? Commnents?

Indenture

[Rico Jansen]

Well, for starters, GalcomHQ would be one of the worst places to sell something. If you checked the infopage on tradcom, you'll notice it has an inflation level of 0%. It doesn't get any lower than that. So if you want better profits, seek ya customers elsewhere. It may have to take a few jumps through the Terran quad, but one-run profit can lead up to 66%. (excluding operating costs) Anything better is in unfriendly territory.

Buying at GalcomHQ is a very good one, and you allready found my favourite, deflector arrays. Take up the least space for every buck it costs.

Have you also noticed why deflector arrays are a good buy at GalcomHQ, and why, ie supportcraft spareparts are a bad buy overthere? I guess, otherwise you werent trading medibays and launch arrays on the other end. Profit has all to do with seeking the right place for the right item. There's an appendix to the manual that can tell you the inflation that goes with the place. Economy is the name of the game. And a topic in the tips section that I made that describes the price system in bc3k. Dig and ya shall find.

While it may not be an easy thing for just starting, you might want to try and put some mining drones on the surface. It takes a while to reap profits, but it is sure for free.

Oh yeah, you want the upgrades. 35 mil should be more than enough for that. check the manual for those.

[Apollon]

i burned some insurgent bases on earth.

as i don┬┤t trust my pilots, i got down there with my battlecruiser. hop into an ATV and take out the SAMs. then you can take care of the bunkers with the BC, while the ICs distract the fighters. there aren┬┤t many of them anyway, just 1 or 2.

you get around 100 EPs for each building you destroy. after i burned all the buildings, i recall my ICs and head for GALCOM for repairs. if there are survivors, i spare them.

usually some GALCOM marines will appear and assist you, but they aren┬┤t too effective. but take care you don┬┤t kill any of them by mistake. i think that it takes away some EPs if you do.

[Gomez]

My early strategy was to do about the same thing as you. Except I did Cloning Modules. 4.5 mill at GalComHQ, 5.95 mill at Gazer. It gets better a few jumps further, but I found that speed of gaining money, is more important than straight up profit from a longer trip. Using 8x time, I was able to accrue 200 million credits in probably 2 hours play time. Needless to say, I purchased the top end upgrades.

Now, for experience, once I had this money, I found this neat device known as an OTS Missile. Specifically, the Bugnor. Terran/Insurgents on Earth? Not any more.....At least, not in Antarctica and around Australia. After that, I was Flt Cmdr. with about 35k XP....

I decided it was time to give ACM a try instead of FF.....

[Guest jhnphm]

You could also trade solar reactors from galcolm to saturn, which gives you 1 million per solar panel traded. In ACM, the HSD helps a lot.

[ 07-26-2001: Message edited by: Borg12 ]

[Rico Jansen]

You would have been better off had you delivered them at Genesis orbiting the moon.

(chuckles for knowing the secret formula)

[Steve Schacher]

Starting Strategy: Raid the debris fields. Keep searching until you find all your upgrades. Then sell enough stuff to fill up your gas tanks.

Then head out for the stars.

[Guest jhnphm]

You could also sell the solar reactors from Galcolm at pluto, for a profit of 1.5 million apiece, same as the moon. However, pluto is more accessible to other planets, in case you want to buy elsewhere Then, when you have at least 30 million, send a shuttle and buy some Bugnor OTS, which are even more compact then deflector arrays if you use a shuttle. The BC can only hold 10, but the shuttle can hold much more because it sticks weapons in the cargo bay, instead of a smaller weapons bay. Sell them at Pluto, for a profit of 1.5 million apiece, with each only taking 25 space on a shuttle. You might make more if you sell them elsewhere. I'm not sure if you get violations for selling advanced weapons to the enemy, though . I made 100 million in 10 minutes (Of course I had another 100 million as starting capital). And I didn't even use the HSD!

[ 07-27-2001: Message edited by: Borg12 ]

[Eclipse]

Deflector Arrays.

Buy at Galcom sell at Pluto.

you can hold quite a few more.

I would suggest that you search the Debris fields... very helpful.

[Rico Jansen]

quote:

---

...send a shuttle and buy some Bugnor OTS, which are even more compact then deflector arrays if you use a shuttle.

---

Sorry, CERTAINLY not true. Don't know how you figured that out. Have you checked the "Trade appendix S"? Divide the price colum by the CDISP colum. Which comes down to the item value per unit of used cargospace (ie Nutripacks use the smallest possible unit of space: 1 CDISP). If you have the money, you can put 80 OTS Bugnors in a shuttle (worth 400 Mcred at the universe standardprice), compared to 1000 deflector arrays (worth 500 Mcred).

Sure, have it your way, forget about that extra 25% shuttle 'coin-carrying' efficiency.

But it's ok, it even took some long-time vets years to figure that out.

My tip: Forget about how many actual credits the difference is, divide sell price by buy price, multiply by 100, deduct 100 from that figure, that's your profit in percentages of buy price. (or profit in percentages of investment, or performance, or just the extra money you just made ... in a percentage ofcourse )

Second tip: If you didn't buy those items (as in debris field scooping), have a look at the "type" colum in the trade appendix, and then look for those 2-character acronyms in the Navchart.pdf appendix (E). That's the place NOT (really) to sell them.

[ 07-29-2001: Message edited by: Rico Jansen ]

[PowerCow]

Hello!

Long time no see. Anyway! :

I was reading this thread and I remembered my old BC site, and after some digging through CD’s I discovered I actually did make a backup before it got pulled from Tripod (probably from neglect).

I thought it might be useful for the BC3000AD newbies that are playing the old (new) legacy version.

Its got lots of tips and other info etc.

It can be found here:

www.cowzilla.com/bcweb

I think my web host is doing a server move within the next couple of weeks, so it might go down for a short time, but do try and visit again later if you have trouble!

Hope that helps,

Chuck

ICV I’ve forgotten

[Blades]

Powercow dude! Where have you been? Good to see you back here after all this time, even if you do still insist on running with that Insurgent rabble.

[chained_angel]

I'm also a newbie to BattleCruiser 3000 AD and the game is the exact kind of game I had been looking for. Open, huge, complex, free flow, your character is insignificant, etc.

Anyway, I notice a lot of people saying Deflector Arrays from Galcom --> Pluto as the quick money route but what about Galcom --> Polaris 1? In the early going I like trading radiation control units between the two also.

Secondly, I have no idea of what the debris fields are. Maybe I missed something when I read the manual, but what are debris fields and how do I go into them?

And Powercow, your site was great help to a newbie!

[Papi]

Debris fields contains space debris, randomly generated gargo pods and mines.

Just give your BC order: fly to >hazard > debris field.

Auto generation of cargo pods starts when you reach the debris field.

Now do some searching in the forums for more tips about debris fields

[chained_angel]

OK, it took me half an hour to figure out how to use the debris fields (out of my own stupidity). Anyway, I was at a debris field near moon, ordered Cargosweep to my shuttle, he got 1 cargo then started heading for the Earth... not good...

So I restore an older game and beam the cargo manually using Tacops then I dock at Pluto with an illegal item on board and I get a violation. Doh! Is there any way to conceal illegal items or something when you dock to a Galcom station?

[Papi]

You left the debris field with you BC before the shuttle left, right?

You should park your BC in the debris field.

As soon as you leave it, all cargo pods will disappear.

And illeagal items were just discussed a little time ago.

So do some searching and you'll find the answers

[chained_angel]

Yea, I let the BattleCruiser sit in the middle of the debris field by the Moon, and ordered 2 shuttles to cargosweep. The first shuttle picked up one cargo pod then headed for Earth, and the second immediately headed to Earth. I dunno what happened there, but it only happened that once. I've had no other problems with debris fields.

As for the illegal items, I will do some searching, but what I started doing is leaving them on my BC while using a shuttle to dock to Galcom stations.

And I towed an SOS guy to HQ and got 35 EP but no money

This game is great - wide, complex, free flow. Only thing it's missing is a training mode because it brings everything to you at once. The last thing a newbie needs is intruders on board 10 min into the game.

[Papi]

I can send you training script, I don't remember who wrote it, but it's not quite finished.

Although it gives you sometime to get familiar with the game.

If you want to try it i'll send it to you.

[chained_angel]

Thanks, I got it

[Papi]

So that the credits goes to the right person the script was written by Daniel Moritz [a.k.a. EarthCOM-Officer Daniel Allard], I don't know if he ever finished it I thought if I'd should try to finish it and translate it to Galcom Academy script. If Daniel don't mind that is and if I get time to do it.

[ 09-02-2001: Message edited by: Papi ]