Planetary Trader is a turn-based, persistent-universe space trading and combat door game for Wildcat! bulletin boards. Inspired by the classic TradeWars 2002 lineage, it hands each caller a starship, some credits, and a single instruction: make your mark on the galaxy before someone else does.
Trade commodities between ports, colonize planets, found corporations with your fellow sysops and callers, build defensive bases, contract bounties on rival captains, and hunt down the roaming Pirate Kings that shift position between every login.
The universe is shared. Every caller's actions ripple out — a bounty you place on Tuesday might be collected on Thursday by a captain you've never met.
Up to 650 sectors connected by procedurally generated warp lanes. Each universe is unique — ports, planets, and connections are seeded per install.
Built-in BFS pathfinder plots the shortest route between any two sectors, then walks you through the voyage with pirate ambushes, asteroid fields, and Pirate King encounters along the way.
Nine port classes with dynamic pricing based on stock levels. Buy low, sell high, and watch a sector's economy shift with your trades. Class-9 Stardocks offer ship upgrades, fighters, shields, and escape pods.
Attack, boost shields, deploy fighters, or attempt to flee. Fight pirates, Federation patrols, hostile captains, or the fearsome Pirate Kings. Weapon-level upgrades scale your damage.
Claim unowned planets for 10,000 credits. Name them, hold them, defend them. Multiple planets per sector are possible — but risky.
Found a corporation for 50,000 credits, invite others under your 4-character tag, share a treasury, and mark corp members as friendly-fire immune. Leaders can transfer leadership by defecting, or disband.
Build a defensive base on any planet you own (50k credits + 100 fighters). Bases produce fighters over real time, can be upgraded for defense and production, and deter would-be attackers.
A rotating mission board offers Delivery, Bounty Hunt, and Explore contracts — always at least ten on the board, refreshed at login. Complete them for credits, score bonuses, and leaderboard climb.
Place bounties on other captains (10,000 cr minimum). When they die in PvP, the killer collects. All active bounties are visible to every caller — publish your grudges.
Captain Blackbeard and Captain Redbeard roam the sectors as persistent AI bosses, shifting between every login. Warp into their sector and you fight — no option. Beat them for 100,000 credits and 5,000 score.
Class-9 Stardock sectors are Federation-protected. Try to PvP there and a patrol starship warps in alongside the port defense turrets. Pirate Kings avoid these sectors entirely.
Lay proximity mines to defend an empty sector or your own single-planet colony. Corp members pass safely; everyone else takes a hit on entry. Discourages sector-stacking planets.
Four separate top-10 boards: Score, Credits, Kills, and Most Bases Owned. Fresh on every check.
Auto-generated on exit — ANSI version for the BBS, HTML version for the web. Fresh top-lists, recent kills, and news events every session.
Every significant event — planet claim, corp founded, base built or destroyed, PvP kill, Pirate King defeat — is logged and shown at login. History is public.
Callers on different nodes each get their own scratch directory (ptrader\NodeN\) for
transient files. Shared game state is coordinated through the main data directory.
================================================ PLANETARY TRADER for Wildcat! WCBasic Edition ================================================ Welcome aboard, Captain Gnickel Universe loaded. Welcome back, Captain Gnickel! Daily fuel replenishment: +250 units (tank now at 500/1000). Your bases produced 47 fighters since your last visit. *** GALACTIC NEWS *** 08:14 Captain Redbeard has appeared in sector 313 and hunts for prey! 07:32 IronFist has claimed New Meridian in sector 47. 06:12 Rogue has slain Vega in sector 128! ======== SECTOR 1 (Stardock) ======== Ship: Frigate Fuel: 500/1000 Cargo: 0/50 Credits: 12,450 Score: 3,890 Kills: 7 Warps to: 2 17 44 92 [N]av [P]ort [F]ight [M]issions [C]orps [B]ases [A]-planets [L]eaderboards [U] bulletins [Q]uit
.wcx and packaged as .wcl)ptrader\ — no external DBptedit.wcx — player editor for testing / fixupRUNDrop the compiled .wcl library into c:\wcat\. Point a menu entry at
ptrader.wcx. On first launch the door generates the universe, planets, and port stock
automatically — sit back and let it do the work.
All game state lives under ptrader\. Delete universe.dat
(or drop MAX_SECTORS in ptrader.wch) and the game will regenerate.