7. 4. General Tips

1. Never ever trade in a route with a scout drone in it, if the drone's owner is online. Some guys use them for specific targets, others use them to find easy kills. A good habit to get into is check the current player list every couple of minutes to make sure a potential threat comes online. If the owner is not on, trade there only as a last resort, there are a lot of trade routes out there.

2. If your ship can hold drones, ALWAYS carry at least one drone. It may not seem like a lot but it may be the difference in the attacker having to hit you once or multiple times. If you are zipping through your trade routine you might just be able to run.

3. Don't do anything else while you are trading, don't send messages, read messages, read news, check the webboard, etc. It is good to have at least one other browser open to check the current players while you trade.

4. Before you start you days trading, read the news, if there has been a lot of action in or around your trade rounds within the past couple of hours, either wait or use a different route. Hunters usually have a set pattern that they check for kills on routes. The make their "rounds" so to speak just hoping to find a nice juicy kill. If you avoid heavy traffic areas, you'll be that much less likely to be put in a pod.

5. Under no circumstances should you EVER run out of turns while unprotected, my policy is to save at least 15 turns extra(in a PSF) in case of an emergency where I have to flee my route. If you logged out unprotected and you aren't number 1 in the game, go ahead and kiss your ship good bye. Never take anything for granted, like thinking "oh I'll be safe here for tonight, no-one ever comes around here" wishful thinking.

6. Set yourself up scout drones a few sectors around your trade lanes(not in them), if while your trading you get a message, don't read it, run! So what if you waste a few turns, your alive, in your ship, with your cash, consider yourself lucky.

7. Use mines to your advantage, by this I mean only have them planted in a route while you are there trading, never when your not using the route. You can piss people off if they are just passing through and they run into a minefield, there goes one more person you have to look out for.

8. Get a cloakable ship, even if you only have a few thousand exp. that's a whole lot less people you have to look out for. Again, never assume your invincible(unless your number 1, then this advice probably isn't any good to you anyhow :)), I was number 2 in Arms Race, I got cocky and didn't think the one person who could see me would find me, I was wrong and I paid the price (Thanks Warrior, I learned a lot from that). The cloak is powerful, but even it has a weakness.

9. Vary your trade lanes and times, skilled hunters will study when and where you trade, if you make it random it will be a lot harder for them to calculate where you will be the next day. Always keep them guessing, that's why you should always have a few back up route's you can use, so what if they don't trade anything except low level goods, they will upgrade eventually (quicker than most think), if your "main" port is drained, you have someplace to fall back on.

10. Last but not least, use your head. If your trading on a route with a handful of level 9 ports that all compliment each other, expect hunters to find you and find you often, we look for stuff like that. Why bother wasting turns checking the small ports a bunch of sectors away from fed when all the traders we can kill trade right outside of fed space.