Terms Used

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General information

Tiny Empires 3000 is a massively multiplayer game that you play entirely in the HUD window in Second Life. The game is set far in the future, when the human race has spread across most of the galaxy. A devastating galactic war has ended, and the corrupt empire of old has been overthrown by a freedom-seeking rebellion force. The economy, badly damaged during the war, is starting to recover. Goods are being traded again among the various star systems.

You start out as a Pilot with a single transport spaceship, earning a modest living by delivering goods to outlying colonies and trade outposts.

The goal of the game is simple: Grow your trade empire by purchasing ships, joining a guild, gaining subordinates, and cultivating colonists.

Of course, you may find that friends make for good subordinates, and subordinates can make very good friends.


The game hud will go into idle mode after a while of no activity, similar to original Tiny Empires. In idle mode there is no income, no dues, nothing. SO there is no danger in leaving your HUD attached all night.

For choosing your own superior, the following rules apply: the superior has to have a minimum of 5 ships, maximum 3 ranks down can hook up with a superior.

Commission

Commissions are credits paid to, or paid by, a player each month based on the ships possessed. A player receives commissions from their subordinates, and pays commission to their superior.

Credit

The unit of finance in Tiny Empires 3000.

Fleet

The ships owned by a player. There are two totals involved: personal ships owned by the player, and total ships owned by that player and all of their direct and indirect subordinates. Some game functions, notably rank, reference total ships; others, such as colonies, reference personal ships.

Guild Dues

These are deducted during every December turn. Dues are a percentage of the commissions earned during the year now concluding. The percentage increases as a player rises in rank. If there are not enough credits to pay dues, a ship will be sold to cover the balance due.

Subordinate

The persons immediately below a player in the guild hierarchy. Commissions are received from one's subordinates. Also, a player with subordinates receives bonus credits every other year in January.

To be able to get a subordinate, you can't be more than 3 ranks above. For a new player (pilot), you need at least 5 ships to get him/her as subordinate. To change superior, the superior needs at least 10 ships (Courier). Subordinates will be lost when a superior has a rank that is over 5 above his/her subordinate. The subordinate will be without superior until he/she "hooks up" with someone else.

Superior

The person immediately above a player in the guild hierarchy. Commissions are paid to one's superior.

A player can give ships to others who are 1 rank above or (at most) 3 levels below. An exception is giving to a Runner with less than 5 ships: trying to give ships will lead to the message that the player is "too inexperienced" and transferring ships won't work.

Fleet efficiency

Upgrades to your fleet, that improve your income in credits per ship. See Upgrades for more information about the upgrades you can obtain.

As far as we know now, it looks like every 6 personal ships unlock a new upgrade.

Colony

General information about colonies:

  • If you buy a Colony in the TE3000 HUD, then this will enable disasters. If you don't buy a Colony, then the HUD will be like the regular Full Version HUD, and you can wear if without fear of being penalized. If you do buy a Colony, then you have to keep monitoring the HUD every turn to avoid missing disasters, like with the Federation HUD, but with the potential for more credits (gold). So, it's a tradeoff.
  • Each colony improves your income by 100 credits / ship.
  • You can have a maximum of three (3) colonies. When you buy more (fourth, fifth, sixth,..etc.) colonies, it replaces the colony with the least citizen capacity.

Minimum requirements for a colony:

  • Rank at least Trader
  • Amount of personal ships required are not confirmed exactly. Estimates are:
    • 1. colony: (around) 25 ships
    • 2. colony: (around) 45 ships
    • 3. colony: (around) 65 ships and... (?)
  • You get an offer to buy a colony only once a day (24 hours); when you don't buy it will come back after about 1 hour.

Prices of colonies range from around 480K credits to over 2B credits (and still rising!), depending on rank, total ships, citizen capacity, kind of colony and maybe more variables. More research is necessary.

Available colonies:

Level Terrestrial Mining Orbital
more loot at census credit bonus at random cheaper disasters
1 Terrestrial planetoid Mining asteroid Orbital laboratory
2 Medium terrestrial planetoid Large mining asteroid Advanced orbital laboratory
3 Medium terrestrial planetoid Large mining asteroid Advanced orbital

Upgrades:

  • when someone has three (?) colonies, the possibility comes to research disease, corruption or "Hand of Anarchy": no data available on what the effect is in the long run, some people have started investigatin

Disasters:

  • Disease
  • Corruption
  • Piracy (The Hand of Anarchy)
    • ask for guild protection - 60k cr
    • hire war-hardened mercs - 280k cr (Result: +25 colonists)
    • learn about base defense - 600k cr (Result: -25 colonists)
    • cut a deal with pirates - 0 cr

Fatigue

Fatigue builds up in your fleet from too much trade activity. It only affects you after quite a long time of playing the game in a single day. If you are affected, you will see (Fatigue) at the bottom of your ACCTS tab. It lowers your fleet efficiency which affects your income. It resets back to zero once per day (at around 8 - 10 PM SLT). You don't have to do anything. It resets whether you are online or off. Fatigue does not build up during idle mode.

Puzzles

To get a solution for the puzzles, check out the website: http://www.erzsabet.com/TE3000Calc.html

Unity questions

There are a couple of unity questions we know of now. They are:

  • In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act. Do you agree? (George Orwell) - Advice: answer YES
  • If the post-war peace is better than the pre-war strife, yet the war itself is utterly devastating, is the war a good thing overall? - Advice: answer NO
  • If you try to fail and you succeed, have you failed? - Advice: answer NO
  • A question about Voltaire - Advice: answer NO

Mysterious vessel (Black Diamond)

A "Mysterious Vessel" will occassionaly appear in the HUD. His appearance always causes a lot of excitement and joy in Tiny Empires 3000. When he appears, the "Onboard Entity" will ask you for a lot of of credits to trade for minerals and ore, but won't say what you will be getting in exchange. Definitely pay what he asks if you have the credits, as the Vessel is a bonus to the players. The Vessel can give you a boost in either ships or credits, if played properly. The Vessel makes random appearances - Unknown. There is no website yet available that predicts or records past Trading sightings.


On arrival of the "Mysterious Vessel" there are some steps. They are:

  • 1st month = 1st notice, warning about the Mysterious Vessels approach.
  • 2nd month = nothing
  • 3rd month = 2nd notice, warning again of the Mysterious Vessel.
  • 4th month = nothing
  • 5th month = 3rd notice (+ amount of credits asked)
  • 6th month = 4th notice and payment

Vessel sightings

  • 3/15/09 at about 19:45 SLT
  • ...
  • ...

Offers of Mysterious Vessel

For one year, you may buy ships at a very low price.

What to do: BUY ships for 12 turns

The price of buying a ship will be incredibly low. Not totally free, so you will need to have some credits to buy the ships. If you don't have enough gold to buy, you can always buy/sell at the same time, but be careful the selling price doesn't drop too.

For one year your ships will be worth more than normal

What to do: SELL ships for 12 turns.

Your ships are worth a lot with this bonus, but depending on your situation you may want to BUY and SELL at once so you do not lose total ships. However you will get a slightly higher profit if you sell all at once then buy back at a lower cost. This will take more time though it you are patient.

Offers fuel pellets, your efficiency skyrockets.

What to do: WAIT out the 12 turns to collect credits and BUY ships (when you can).

Your ship efficiency will skyrocket for 12 turns, and you will get a ridiculous amount of credits per turn. Like with any bonus that builds up your credits, buy ships when you can.

Fleet effiencecy has been raise by 100 credits/ship permantely.

What to do: Nothing!

This bonus permanently increases your ship efficiency by 100cr/ship. You can check your ship efficiency by clicking on the Accounting tab in the HUD. When you get this bonus, you have nothing further to do. This is the best bonus in my opinion, and pays off the most in the long run.

Purchased ships are very likely to contain surprises

What to do: BUY ships for 11 turns

You will receive a surprise in credits which is close to the price of the ship you just bought. Sometimes "hidden chamber with a credit chip", or "transport previous owner", or "left-over cargo". Basically you are getting ships for free or incredibly cheap. Note that for the last month of the Trader bonus year, you don't get the bonus - hence you only buy for 11 of the 12 turns.

Your first ship is maybe worth more (no stated price) [b]OR[/b] ONE of your ships is worth more.

What to do: Sell ships.

Unfortunately this can be a little unpredictable. Some people recieve messages that say, "Do you want to sell this ship? Perhaps it is worth something." and when they sell, it give them an exceptional profit. However, in other cases there are no clues to which ships you should sell so you have to continue selling them, even after the year the trader is there. It took some people 2 years or 7 different "sell?" offers before they got their big pay off. But the pay off was worth it so you have to stick it out! This is even more frustrating if you buy and sell at the same time because each month is a net loss. But when you find that one ship, it sells for 10-12? times the normal selling price.

WARNING

If you have FATIGUE when the trader comes, be careful, after you pay him, you may zero out and not get any profits! You may end up losing all your credits! Depending on which bonus you get or how bad your fatigue is, it is very risky!