TW2002 2.0 (beta 5) New Player Info, by Stephen Whitis
 
This is far from being the last word in TradeWars strategy. It is designed to help someone new to TW's (or v2.0) get off to a good start. Some of the info is accurate but for other versions some of the info is not.

The single most important advice I can give to anyone wanting to become skilled at the game is to read the FIDO-TradeWars echo regularly. I would also recommend you save a copy of this post to refer to later.

Before we go on, let me explain about utilities. Most of the serious players use utilities. There are two basic kinds, and at least a couple that do double-duty, handling both tasks. Database utilities are probably the most important. They parse the ton of info the game sends and helps find paired ports, dead ends, etc. Other utilities handle automation. Trading Paired ports can be very time consuming and very boring. Automation utilities automate the redundant tasks. You get into place, tell them what to do, and let them run. It's like having a second officer to whom you can delegate some of the chores. I use TWAsssist for a database and TLXTW scripts for Telix for automation and is very popular TWHelp combines tasks and is very popular. TWTerm and TWHelp have both been released with graphical interfaces (and sound support, I believe). There are others, too. I recommend trying several and picking which you like best.
 
New Players / Page 2