My first user's situation.. any hints?

Well.. I just registered (not that that'd matter that much) and I'm playing my first user (added a second but that's besides the point). On a rather slow computer.. the dialing of an ISP takes approx. ten seconds! Okay. I'm just rambling.

Here's what's troubling me: I'm currently ranked skilled (rank 5, I think) and I get all these missions I know I can't accomplish anyway.. because of a lack of money. I haven't even bought a gateway yet. Did buy a HUD and a proxy bypass recently in the hope of getting more money that way, and I do multiple academic institute hacks at the same time, which helps as well. Indeed, I'm still doing rank 3 missions. I may be able to do -some- rank 4 missions now I just bought the proxy bypass, but that's very recent.

So.. any hints on how to get ahead in rank 4 (& 5) missions and/or get more money in other ways? I'm not asking for full solutions here, just tiny hints like what equipment would be useful (I'm thinking proxy, firewall & monitor bypasses.. but I may be wrong).. for my user at this moment. Of course, maybe I should get a better gateway first.. I'm not sure.

Another question: I got tracked by ARC (before they got busted), while I did erase my logs at InterNIC (version 4 deleter).. except for all the connection logs. Of course, my skills were by far not up to cracking ARC at the time (and at the moment as well), but I still wonder how they did get to me. Is this a story thing `(that they email you always) or did they unerase some logs.. or what? And how can I prevent this while anyone can trace me?

Last question: what's up with the Neuromancer rating? I'm still at neutral, and I know that the missions you do affect your rating (I tend to slide from neutral to untrustworthy and back), but exactly what are good missions to crank up your rating? I'm guessing the delete missions, but I doubt that is the only type of mission which helps with your Neuromancer rating. And, should I get it up (or down), how does it affect the game/my user? Again, I prefer hints to cheats..

Thanks.. and I hope I didn't repeat a common topic here, but since I've got multiple questions I though creating this topic was permissible.

C.Storm

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I'd say there's one in every crowd, but in this crowd there's at least twenty or so... -Frandall

'Flesh so fine, so fine to tear, to gash the skin; skin to strip, to plait, so nice to plait the strips, so nice, so red the drops that fall; blood so red, so red, so sweet; sweet screams, pretty screams, singing screams, scream your song, sing your screams....' - Machin Shin

(This message has been edited by Celestial Storm (edited 08-30-2003).)

You will not need to buy the Hud Connection Analyisis and Proxy Bypass until later in the game. However, if you are gaving trouble getting past firewalls and proxies, by the disablers. They are cheaper than bypassers, and they still disable the system so you can continue hacking. However, you will be traced if you you these, unlike the bypassers, but you can live that.

As for your second question, i have no idea. next...

The nueromancer rating is given to you by the hacker communtity. It will generaly be quite low in the begining of the game(Indiscriminate) because the only missions available are to hurt hackers. As you get better missions
"Elite Agent required for Destrucion of Computer System" and your nueromancer will fly up in doing just 3 of those.

Your second part of the question, it does not affect your status at all.

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The Most powerful Unix Command:
sudo rm -r /

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Originally posted by Celestial Storm:
**Well.. I just registered (not that that'd matter that much) and I'm playing my first user (added a second but that's besides the point). On a rather slow computer.. the dialing of an ISP takes approx. ten seconds! Okay. I'm just rambling.
**

Uplink need a lot of resource from both the processor and the RAM. Quit all running programs (including Classic, if you have) before playing, and play with the setting of Uplink to find the one which give the gretest speed.

Quote

**
Here's what's troubling me: I'm currently ranked skilled (rank 5, I think) and I get all these missions I know I can't accomplish anyway.. because of a lack of money. I haven't even bought a gateway yet. Did buy a HUD and a proxy bypass recently in the hope of getting more money that way, and I do multiple academic institute hacks at the same time, which helps as well. Indeed, I'm still doing rank 3 missions. I may be able to do -some- rank 4 missions now I just bought the proxy bypass, but that's very recent.

So.. any hints on how to get ahead in rank 4 (& 5) missions and/or get more money in other ways? I'm not asking for full solutions here, just tiny hints like what equipment would be useful (I'm thinking proxy, firewall & monitor bypasses.. but I may be wrong).. for my user at this moment. Of course, maybe I should get a better gateway first.. I'm not sure.
**

Tracing a bank transfer can give an enormous lot of money (hint).
And yes, get a good gateway first.

Quote

**
Another question: I got tracked by ARC (before they got busted), while I did erase my logs at InterNIC (version 4 deleter).. except for all the connection logs. Of course, my skills were by far not up to cracking ARC at the time (and at the moment as well), but I still wonder how they did get to me. Is this a story thing `(that they email you always) or did they unerase some logs.. or what? And how can I prevent this while anyone can trace me?**

Quote

Originally posted by STraven:
Depend, if You got a mail from a dead agent with a code for ARC mainframe, it's the storyline. According to what you said, it is the storyline.

Ah. So you will always receive the 'we know you're there, why won't you work with us' email from ARC when you have attempted to hack into their mainframe? Makes sense. I wonder whether my second user will get it as I haven't made a hack at ARC with him. I doubt it.

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**The neuromancer rating change which sort of mission you can do. A bad neuromancer won't allow you to do dirty missions, for example.
**

Okay.. so.. a good neuromancer rating means you're black-hat hacker and a bad rating means you're white-hat hacker? Hmm. It seems they like black hatters.

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I'd say there's one in every crowd, but in this crowd there's at least twenty or so... -Frandall

'Flesh so fine, so fine to tear, to gash the skin; skin to strip, to plait, so nice to plait the strips, so nice, so red the drops that fall; blood so red, so red, so sweet; sweet screams, pretty screams, singing screams, scream your song, sing your screams....' - Machin Shin

There is one bug that you can easily exploit.

If you have ever noticed the comtact botton on the mission board, that button is your friend.

Find a mission, and contact them. One of the things you can ask is to have half or all your money now. Click "i want all the money now"

they will probably refuse. so what. say "no thanks" but now contact them again. ask for all the money again. if they refuse again repeat. The great thing is that about 1 in 5 or 10 tries they will eventually accept and you can get all the money before doing the mission. This is great if the mission is too hard to do then, and also great because you can get software for good mission earlier easly. I've never found a mission that wont give you all the money now after enough tries, it always eventually works.

Now even greater is a bug that you can exploit. Uplink does not save to files that you were prepaid for a mission(it saves it to ram). If you accept a mission and get prepaid, then quit uplink, but complete the mission on a later playing, you will get your pay in full. AGAIN. you can get double money from missions. You could also use cheat 2, but thats really cheating...

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(url="http://"http://www.freewebs.com/hardslab/cheat2.hqx")Cheat 2(/url)
Cheat in almost any mac game. Even Nova... Even UPLINK.