The Secrets of Sell-Steal-Transport, or "SST"
Basic concepts: In Evil play, you can steal product from a port, and then turn around and sell it back to the same port right away. (Port administrators are not hired for their brains, but for their nasty attitude.) But you cannot steal or rob from the same port twice in a row, or you will get busted -- the port will fine you points and holds and you lose your cargo. One way around this is to move back and forth between two ports, like with pair trading -- stealing and selling back, then going elsewhere to do the same, then return and repeat. This is called pair stealing or "Sell-Steal-Move" (SSM).
SST is a technique that takes advantage of the fact that transporting between ships only takes one turn, as opposed to moving between sectors, which can take a lot of turns in a large ship. Since the port remembers YOU, not the ship, you can park two ships outside the two ports and use the ship's transporters to move yourself between the ships and do your selling and stealing back.
To do this, you need your main ship, plus two cargo ships. You can use your main ship and one other, but it's no good to bust out in your main ship and lose some of your holds. You start with two Freighters, move up to Mules when you've saved enough money, and eventually get Colts. The sooner you trade up the better, so don't be stingy! You'll more than recoup the investment in the first day you use them.
So -- you identify a run of perhaps 5 or 6 equipment buying
ports in a row, or at least close together. You, or your Blue
partner, lays down figs in all of them, and in any adjacent major
intersections. These are "picket figs" to warn you of
the approach of enemies. Also, lay out some mines and limpets
in each sector you're going to steal in. I usually drop 25 figs,
10 mines and 3 limpets in each sector. The figs and mines help
slow down an attacker -- when they enter the sector, the first
thing that happens is the mines explode. Then the game asks them
if they wish to avoid the sector in the future, and they must
answer yes or no. Then the figs challenge them, and they must
destroy the figs. THEN (finally) they have the chance to attack
your ship -- and by this time you should have x-ported out to
your main ship and are on the way back to counter-attack. Furthermore,
they've picked up a limpet, so YOU can track THEM to hunt them
down if they try to back off.
I usually pick the "ends" of the path -- no farther
apart than the maximum range of the ship's transporter -- to start
in. Place the big cargo ships there. Then place one refurb in
each sector with them, and two or three more along the path between
them (we'll discuss "refurbs" in a moment.) T-warp to
the area in your main ship, into a DE if you can find one nearby.
Drop a few thousand defensive figs around you to slow down anyone
who tries to attack the ship while you're not in it. A few mines
are added insurance. Then transport over to your cargo ship and
start SSTing. If anyone comes along and hits your picket figs,
stop and transport back to your main ship quickly! It might save
your life, and you'll have firepower to deal with the intruder
-- and you'll be coming at them from "behind", or hightailing
it back to your base with the cash, which is more important really.
Always carry about 100 figs on each stealing ship, and maximum shields. The figs are for dropping around you while stealing and for capping refurbs , and the sheilds are nice when running into the nav haz you create while capping them. I usually like to pack the Colt with corbomite also, because a Colt is tricky to capture (because it's so fragile) and is likely to blow up the attacker.
It's best to have your Blue partner on line while you steal. You are VERY vulnerable while running stealing scripts -- it's when Evils get killed. Having a back-up with an ISS is good insurance. They stand guard and you make money, and stand guard when YOU have to make a run to SD for ship upgrades or supplies. Also, they are the ones who run back and forth to SD to buy refurbs as you need them. They bring you the refurb -- make sure they made it a PERSONAL ship when they bought it, not a corp ship -- and you attack it with 3 figs, destroying it and salvaging it's holds. Occasionally 3 figs only captures it, so then you have to transport to it, reclaim it as a personal ship, go back, and then kill it. Attacking with 4 figs risks destroying it and salvaging nothing.If you must work alone, you have your Blue purchase the refurbs in advance, stash them in some DE or at your home base, and maybe place them along the "stealing path" you're going to use that day. This saves your turns for actually making money. With good online Blue support, the Blue TOWS you from home to the stealing path and back home again. If you use Colts to steal, your every turn is worth 10,000 credits! With solid Blue support you can make 8 million credits a day.
Your Blue partner also tows you from sector to sector when you bust. The procedure goes like this: you get busted and notify your partner. You DROP all the figs your ship is carrying. Then the Blue locks on to you with a tractor beam and WAITS. You then pick up all the figs you just dropped, and when your partner sees the "______ collects some fighters" message, THEN they tow you to the next stealing port. Doing it this way allows them to tow you WITH your figs, since they can't lock a beam on you while you have any figs on your ship.
It's also smart to have the Blue take the credits you've stolen when they tow you -- it's safer to have the ISS carrying the money.
When you're done, have the Blue go through and move the colts (and spare furbs, if any) back to their hiding places (or to SD if you're "riding" them at extern). Usually you just leave the figs and mines in place, but change stealing areas if anyone encounters them.
Refurbing: blowing up a ship to capture it's holds to replace yours lost in a bust is called "refurbing". The point being that the cost of buying holds outright gets SO high after 100 or so that you save a lot of money doing it this way, and it spares the risk and turns of towing big ships in and out of StarDock. Usually Merchant Freighters are used for this. In a normal bust, you lose holds equivilent to 9% of the number of holds of equipment you tried to steal. (It's equal to the exp. points you get for a successful steal.) In a Freighter it's 6 holds, in a Mule 13, in a Colt 22. When you capture holds from a ship, you get a maximum of 1/3 of it's total holds. So the refurb ship has to have 3 times the number you need to replace on the busted ship. For example, to refurb a Mule that's been busted out of 13 holds, you need a MF with 39 holds on it. For a Colt, you need an MF with 63 holds.
When you bust, you destroy the refurb in the sector you're in (carefully! Just use 5 to 7 figs, so you don't completely destroy it and are "unable to salvage anything"), regaining your holds, then move on to the next port in line. If you have an online Blue, just radio them to bring you refurbs as needed.
If the port is at 100% equipment, you have to upgrade it. Remember when upgrading, you upgrade units in blocks of ten. So to make 250 holds available "on the dock" for stealing, you need to upgrade it by 25. Make it 26 though, since the port constantly regenerates and it goes down almost as you watch! (Remember to have cash on hand to do this when you begin.)
So to review, starting with empty stealing ships parked in two nearby sectors with equipment buying ports, you do this:
- Upgrade the port (if needed).
- Steal the equipment from it.
- Transport to the other ship.
- Upgrade the other port (if needed.)
- Steal the equipment from it.
- Transport to the other ship.
- Trade the equipment.
- Steal it back.
- Transport to the other ship.
- Trade the equipment.
- Steal it back.
- Rinse and repeat...
When you bust, kill the furb and move on to the next port. I usually save 50 turns or so at the end for my "getaway" after I'm done.
All you need to do is keep your experience points at 7500 or higher to steal at maximum in a Colt. The rest makes no difference. Alignment is in fact a detriment, since you lose points at extern for being in a split corp, and that loss is calculated from your corporate alignment.
Oh, yes, then there's the "stupid bust", which happens when you try to steal twice at the same port in a row, or at a port that hasn't cleared it's busts yet -- check the Game Settings from the main log on menu to find out when the busts clear. A stupid bust costs you 20% of your holds, though the point loss is the same as a normal bust. IOW, it really sucks to get stupid busted, so be careful. If it happens in a Colt you have your Blue support bring you a fully decked Taurean Mule (150 holds) for a refurb. However, it appears that if you stupid bust at a port, you don't have to wait for that port to clear. If you steal somewhere else, you can go back and steal at the stupid busted port again.
