TMSMR Strategy September 2003

The following is the Strategy Document written up by this writer as leader of the House Forsaken-affiliated Trex Mercenaries of Space Merchant Realms in September, 2003:

In previous rounds of SMR and its forerunner, Space Merchant, planets were at the core of most decent alliances’s strategy. Planets provided a measure of security for members and a base for operations. However, it was always difficult to build up and maintain them since most players considered it dull and boring , not to mention an activity that did little to boost their exp. As a result, only a few committed alliance members worked on the planets.

There have been a number of changes in SMR since the last round that make it very difficult, if not impossible, to build up and maintain planets. These include: no ports in planetary galaxies and no bank interest. There is also the matter of players not being able to plot course and/or use the jump drive any further than bordering galaxies. Trading is far less profitable now than previously. Also, the fact that most galaxies don’t have planets only makes it easier for the mad dog killer outfits to suppress planetary construction through regular raiding. The failure of racial councils to make peace only serves to close them off and makes it harder for traders to avoid the hunters. Likewise, the provision for planetary bonds only serves to increase the insecurity of the planets since there will be more folks aiming at harrying planetary builders in the hopes of hitting the jackpot.

What this means is that we have to do things differently this round than we would have done in previous rounds. Setting up and maintaining sizable minefields are out of the question due to the lack of money brought on in large measure to the lack of bank interest. Since planets are more or less out of the question, we need to use the Fed zones to our advantage. For individual members this means saving up turns to 300+ if you have either a well armed trader or a warbird. Stay within the offensive rating limitations of the Fed zones, arm yourself when you start playing and then sell weaps before logging off.

Counter-hunting is a tactic that alliance members need to use. This means killing all scouts that you find and also figuring out as many trade routes as you can so that if scouts appear on one route, you can switch to another. Avoiding ports that trade in Comps and Lux Items are a good way of avoiding predators altogether. For counter-hunting as an alliance, look down for the term, “combat sweeps.”

As an alliance as a whole, we need to have more folks on their IM’s and in the alliance IRC room whenever they are online, not just when they are in-game. We need to organize and execute some combat sweeps and planet busts. In order to facilitate concentration, alliance members, or at least those with decent fighting vessels, need to trade in the same racial galaxies which means trading up your relations with as many other races as you can.

The term “planet bust” should not require any explanation, although “combat sweep” probably does. A combat sweep is when some alliance members get on a shared communication forum such as an AIM chatroom or an IRC room. These members’s ships are concentrated in the same galaxy and they have scout drones out. Members report what their scouts pick up on them and then the pilots try hunt down/corner ships belonging to other alliances and destroy them. All members can participate in sweeps as long as they have scout drones and can send their information in even if their ships do not actively participate.

Combat sweeps can be a lot of fun and result in some pretty nice kills. However, they require advanced planning, solid committments from members to participate in them, and a target galaxy with a decent number of (at least 3) members’s ships in it. 300+ turns are needed for fighting ships to effectvely participate in them. Scout drones need to be deployed before the op starts and then withdrawn after it ends. It always has to be kept in mind that every sweep has the potential to be either fruitless and/or deadly for our side. Of course, the preferred victim of our sweeps would be the predators of the spaceways, but if they aren’t around, then peaceful traders would have to do.

Because of the importance of these operations, the alliance fund will pay for forces and also fighting ships used in them provided that the ship owner holds on to the forces and fighting ship for the next operation instead of going to a new ship. And please, nobody getting any Battlecruisers or other ships with zero or very little in the line of cargo holds. In order to make ourselves an effective force in the universe, it will be necessary to mount these operations on at least a halfway regular basis.

If we can mount these operations effectively, then we can make a name for ourselves as an alliance as well as individual players. It would also serve to give us something to do as oppose to just mindlessly go back and forth between the same ports. And, if we become feared, then there will be fewer bad persons who will want to mess with us either as a group or as individual players.