The First Day


When you enter the game for the first time you will find yourself 
in a ship type called the Merchant Cruiser. It seems like a good 
ship, but take my word for it, it's NOT the ship to have. Sell 
it immediately!

Hit the V command to locate Stardock, go there immediately, and 
trade the Cruiser in to purchase a Merchant Freighter.

The Freighter is a small ship, and cannot carry many armaments, 
but it does move from one sector to another using only 2 turns.  
That's as efficient as it gets. (The Cruiser you started with 
took 3 turns to move). The Freighter is able to carry 65 holds 
which is pretty decent, and best of all, can carry a Holo 
Scanner. The Holo Scanner is critical for efficent exploration.

As soon as you have sold the Cruiser and bought a Freighter, 
you will need to outfit it. You *must* buy a scanner, but at the
start you will be able to afford only a Density Scanner. Get it! 
You should split your remaining cash, half on fighters (don't get 
more than 100 now) and spend the rest of your cash on holds to 
carry cargo.

When you blast off from Stardock, you'll find that other players 
cannot attack you while you are still there. You are safe in 
Fedspace (sectors 1 thru 10 and at Stardock) unless your 
experience points exceed 1,000 or you become evil.

Now you need to make some money quickly. Go off in some random
direction and look for a trading port. Once you find a port 
use the Density Scanner to see if any other port is next door, 
then go there. The idea is to locate a pair of ports next door 
to each other, where each one buys what the other one is selling. 
That way, you can just move back and forth and be carrying a 
load of product both ways. That's the way to make some quick 
cash.

Every once in awhile, get the report from sector 1 
(command C R 1) and see if you can get a bunch more holds yet.
Your goal is to get a total of 65 holds on your freighter as 
fast as possible.

If you happen to run across another player in the game, run 
like heck! You would waste your assets trying to kill someone 
and you don't want to make an enemy on the first day.

Once you have bought some more holds and have a perhaps 50,000 
credits, go back to stardock and start thinking about some 
serious exploration. This seems to be a big waste of time and 
credits, but over the long run it's absolutely critical.