Playing Freighter Pilot:
 
The object of the game is to get the highest number of experience points as shown on the “Game Standings” list.
You gain experience by flying around the universe and trading at the various space ports. Buy a few modules at one port, and sell them to another port for more credits. Easy money. With the Credits, you buy more modules of cargo, or weapons to defend your ship.
 
Other things to do:
As you explore the universe, it is very important that you make maps.
Colonize planets, build ports, name new planets, and shoot other ships.
 
Moving your Ship:
The universe consists of 8000 cubic sectors. Each cubic sector is randomly numbered. Each cubic sector has 6 adjacent sectors. (This is 3 dimensional space, so a cube has six sides.) Your current sector number is shown at the top of your screen. The 6 adjacent sector numbers are shown on the left of your screen (under “Navigation”). To move to one of the six adjacent sectors, just click on the number on the list. All sectors OUTSIDE of the universe are numbered 0000. You cannot leave the universe, and so you cannot move to sector 0000. If you see sector 0000 listed, you are on the edge of the universe.
 
Turn Limits:
Your ship comes with 1 engine module that will let you move 100 times (turns) when your turns are used up, you cannot play again for 12 hours. (While your beryllium reactor re-charges)
 
Alignment:
Some players may play as pirates instead of traders. Positive alignment players are the good guys, negative alignment players are the bad guys. Pirates steal cargo modules from the ports and then sell them for great profit. Pirates also shoot at you or other ships to try to disable a ships engines. If your ships computer reports an “Explosion in Engine Module”, you’ve been hit.
 
NOTE
If you are a “Good Guy”, your alignment will go up if you shoot at or destroy “Pirates” (Players with negative Alignment) and down if you shoot other “Good Guys”
If you are a “Pirate”, your alignment will go down if you shoot at or destroy a “Good Guy”, and UP if you shoot another “Pirate.”
 
Shields:
You start with 100% shields. If they go to zero, your engine will shut down and you will not be allowed to finish your turns. However, after the 12 hour rest period, your crew will have restored your engine and shields back to 100%
 
Drones:
There are 3 kinds of unmanned drones: Beacons, Mines and Fighters.
You can deploy 1 or more drones in any sector, wherever your ship is at the time.
Beacons play a recorded message to any ship. You enter the message when you deploy the beacon.
Mines explode when any ship (except yours) enters a sector, doing damage to the ships shields. Use these to protect a sector, a port or planet in a sector, or any sector where your ship is parked. If there is more than 1 mine in a sector, they may not all explode at once. Once a mine explodes, it is gone.
Fighters are small unmanned ships that fire at any ship (other than yours) entering a sector.
Click on HELP while in the game for more info.
 
If you forget where you left a drone, run a “Deployed Drone Report”, by clicking on the number which shows “Total Owned” – make sure your browser is set to display “pop-ups”. See the HELP screen, items “P”, “S”, and “V”
 
Controls:
You can play 90% of the game just by using your mouse to click on the various controls. There may be a small amount of typing, like if you need to plot a course to a particular sector, or you want to leave a message for another trader.
To see which controls do what, click on HELP while in the game.
 
Your Home PC:
The game was designed for Internet Explorer version 5 or later. You can try to play in other browsers, but the screens will look screwy and it will be hard to tell which controls do what.
The screens look best if you use Internet Explorer, set your screen resolution to 800 by 600 and press the F11 key to set your browser to full screen. (1024 by 768 works OK)
 
Known bugs:
A reported problem: Your session may time out if you stay too long on a screen without moving or clicking anything. FIX: Log on again.
 
Sometimes you may get a YELLOW screen from the web server that has some error message shown.
Just ignore it, close it, quit Freighter Pilot, and then re-connect and try again. If this does not fix the problem, then the problem is at the web host, or I changed my code, and put a bug in the program. Send e-mail to [Rex Trayn ] to make a bug report
 
 
The most important rule of the game:
Space is a BIG place. There are no maps. To be profitable, you should use a paper and pencil to draw maps so that you can find good ports again. At least write down the sector numbers where the good ports are! If you get lost, fly back to Earth and begin mapping! To find Earth, click on "Plot Course" and enter EARTH as the destination sector.
To be MOST profitable, you want to earn the most credits in the fewest turns.