Interstellar Trader 2 Readme Instructions/Guide
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Welcome to Interstellar Trader 2, the sequel to the detailed, replayable and hot-selling game of space trading, investing and finance. Even more effort has been put into this version of the game to add spice, info and new interfaces and graphics.
Read further for game playing tips and instructions.
NOTE: The demo ends after 40 Staryears (turns).
Requirements for play: Pentium 400+, 64 MB RAM, decent video card, sound card recommended.
Introduction
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If you've played Interstellar Trader, the original, the basic core gameplay is about the same: buy, sell and invest your way into making the goal amount that you set at the beginning of the game. The strategies for each goal amount can be quite different, and its up to you to figure out what that strategy is; Trader is a unique and totally free-form game, with no linear paths to follow for victory. You decide what to do, and in what order.
The Opening Screen
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You are presented with up to 4 options:
Start a new game - Begins a new game, which sets up a randomly generated world, economy and planetary system, each one with different trends, patterns and makeup.
Load a Saved Game - Only lit if there is a saved game to be loaded. This version supports only 1 saved game (and only the full version supports saving games).
Exit Game - Exits Trader back to your operating system.
Buy Interstellar Trader II - Only appears if you are playing the demo version. Click on this (with an internet connection active) to take you directly to the page to purchase the full unlocked version of the game, using a secure online form.
Planet Screen
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You are presented with the 10 planets that make up the planetary system. Each has their own economic health rating, item demand system, gas prices and costs for toll booth rights (explained later). These economic conditions can change throughout the game, so its good to travel to different planets often to map trends. Just click on a planet to travel to its main city.
Other buttons:
Status Report - Gives you a detailed accounting of your holdings, stocks, ship status and a possible newspaper "report" that can give you clues as to what's going on in the galaxy.
Save Game - Allows you to save the current game for playing later. Does not work in the demo.
Exit Game - Exits the current game to the OS without saving.
Main City Screen
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This is the main screen where you'll be doing most of your work. Here you can access all the shops of the main planet.
Each shop and its function are described below:
Trade Center - This is the nerve center of the city, where you'll do all your selling and buying of items. It presents you with 5 items, quantity on hand, and your inventory of up to 15 items to sell. These buying and selling prices can be influenced by the current economic state of the planet (shown on the main city screen next to your credits).
Ship Upgrade Facility - This is where you upgrade your ship's weapons, gas tank, cargo hold and passenger capacity. You can basically craft the type of ship you want to fit your playing strategy.
Investment Center - This is where you can buy and sell stocks of large businesses. New to Trader 2 is a newspaper "clipping" that can give you clues and details that can help you decide what stocks might be hot, and which ones to dump, and a progress meter that gives you the stocks activity in the last fiscal term (which is 7 Staryears, or turns). NOTE: A full Staryear (turn) in Trader is where you travel to a planet, and then leave the planet.
Galactic Bank - This is where you can get loans, deposit and build your savings, and new to Trader 2, invest in special funds. The two funds are: Galactic Fund, which is low-risk, but a lower return fund, and the Starseeker Fund, which can pay off big but is much higher risk.
Prime Minister - You can visit the PM of the planet for 750 credits, where he may help you with a favor of some kind. There are many possible events here (even more added for Trader 2).
Shipyard - Here is where you can buy ships for your defense fleet, buy uniquely generated weapons (new in Trader 2) for your ship to aid in fighting off pirates, and also new in Trader 2, repair your ship, which now has a Durability rating that declines as you use your ship, and can be damaged in combat (more so if you lose a fight). If your ship's Durability hits 0, it stalls and you must have it towed to the nearest planet, at great expense (and in very rare situations, the ship may explode if it nears or hits 0, ending the game). Also NEW, you can purchase a whole new ship with new stats, and even rare ships have special abilities that impact the game. It can be expensive, but uniquely powerful ships are possible that would take a lot of money and time to develop using upgrades. The old ship is discarded when you buy a new ship.
The bottom 4 icons are used for: Pirate Contracts (contracts that reduce the chance of pirate attacks for the term specified), passengers waiting to be picked up, gas station (where you can fill your gas tank), and the cost of a Toll Booth on that planet (where you can collect a fee for all people who travel to that planet; this is paid to you at the beginning of each fiscal term).
Combat
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Combat is handled somewhat differently than Trader 1. It has much more focus on ship-to-ship combat than before, and is much more detailed, with more options and control available to you. Also, there are now 4 different Pirate clans, each with different strengths, priorities and behavior. Below is a list:
Krog - The most barbaric of all the clans, with very strong ships. They have little use for money or items; they just seek to cause damage and destruction.
Vell - Nomadic tribe of pirates that seek money from passing merchants.
Mokk - Pirate merchants that are always on the lookout for ships with cargo holds full of items.
Xerus - The most greedy (and the weakest strength wise) of all the clans, they desire money and items from merchants they attack.
The new options include:
Sacrificing Ships - You may self-destruct one (or more) of your ships to cause extra damage to the pirate fleet. The ship does not do its normal damage when you use this option (only the sacrificing damage, which is usually more than it would do normally).
Suicide Volley - A devastating barrage of phaser fire which adds a random multiplier (usually 2X-10X) to your ship's damage this combat. It can wear down your ship's Durability greatly however, so use it with caution.
Using special weapons - You may fire your special weapon to do extra damage to the pirate fleet, if you had bought one from the Shipyard. The weapons are uniquely generated every game and there are thousands of different ones available.
The pirate main ships also appear in a large array of varieties and strengths, with thousands of different types possible. Make sure and adapt your strategies to the strength and type of pirates appearing.
Other new features
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Rogue Merchant - New to Trader 2, a rare wandering rogue merchant may appear from another galaxy to offer you a rare item at a great price, may offer to buy some items from you, or may offer to buy your whole inventory at a much inflated price.
The Galactic Casino - A new feature of Trader 2, these include many different games of chance which are explained on their respective screens. You may win big, or...you may win nothing.
Most of the screens in the game have mouse-over tooltips to assist you with gameplay.
We hope you enjoy Trader 2, and if you are trying the demo, please consider purchasing the unlocked version.
Thank you and have fun!
Credits:
Game Design/Programming/Sound/Interface Design:
Derek DiBenedetto
Artwork:
Sam Anderson, Ken Ball, Ryan Bliss, George Hiller, Michael Bonnell, Andrew Howard, Mike Simons, Frank Borstein, Gary Justin, Kenneth Franklin, Layne Karkruff, Victor Dobbs, Morgan Phillips
All artwork is (C) by the respective artists and they retain all rights to their work.