So, you want to know how to hack do you? How to become an outstanding Uplink Agent? Well, this kind of information does not come lightly, nor does it come without a price. During your time as an Agent, providing that you do not get caught early in your career of course, you will come across many different types of system. These can range from the low security systems to government systems and high security ones such as banks. You will even get to hack into the Global Criminal Database if you are good enough; and have strong enough nerves for the challenge.

We would strongly suggest that you have a look through the provided tutorial - the program for the tutorial mission has already been placed upon your first Gateway when you joined Uplink. This tutorial will provide you with much valuable information to help you get started in your career as an Uplink Agent. It will guide you through the Test Mission and tell you how to use the basic facilities on the Uplink Internal Services Machine; such as how you can take on new missions and jobs for Uplink when you have passed the training mission, and how to buy new software and hardware, and even how to upgrade your Gateway or buy a new model.
If you do not under go this tutorial mission without the text prompts and help daemon, we shall not be held responsible when you get caught in the first real mission you undergo. If any form of authority discovers you, we shall disavow any knowledge of you and reclaim your Gateway machine. If such happens, you were never a part of this agency and we have never heard of you in our lives. In short, you never existed.

After you have completed and passed the test mission, you may replay it as many times as you like until you get the hang of the system and the basics of hacking. You should take your time to familiarize yourself with the workings of the test machine, and also with the workings of the console; you will find that you need this more and more in higher graded missions. For more help on the console, you may type in "help" on the console screen and it will give you a run down of the commands available to you. Of course, you may find many documents that will explain to you how the console works as well as software devices.

When you feel that you are able to take on one of the real missions, head over to the bulletin board system and check the listings there for any low-grade jobs that may be available to you. You will be visiting this board often, since it is your main source of jobs and thus your main source of income. Of course, you may be approached by outside companies offering you jobs as your career progresses, though you are to be wary of jobs that come to you this way; since some people may try and undermine Uplinks policies.

The more missions you successfully complete, the more credits you will earn which you can then use to upgrade your software, hardware and system. You will find that the Gateway Alpha machine will be enough for the first few low-grade missions you undertake, although you will soon find that you will need more power and speed in order to complete higher-graded missions. There for, you may wish to start thinking about upgrading your Gateway's processor speed after a few missions; although you will still have to pay off the 3000 credit loan that was given to you when you signed up with Uplink first. Since you will receive an email from the Uplink bank once a month, telling you that you have to pay 50 credits to pay off the charge of your loan; this will continue until the loan is paid off. There for, as soon as you have credits enough to pay off the loan, you should log onto the Uplink bank, enter into your account and pay the loan off via the loans menu. Make sure that you get your bank details correctly; otherwise you may end up sending your hard earned credits to the wrong account!

Once the loan is paid off, you will probably want to think about that new processor upgrade. A faster processor will allow you to run programs faster, such as the password breaker and file copy and delete programs, and thus it will allow you to complete missions faster without too much worry about the time left on the trace.
It is nice to be able to buy the fastest processor upgrade for your Gateway strait away, although it does require you to save up for that little bit longer in order to do this; although this method of buying new software and hardware for your Gateway is not needed, it does save credits in the long run if you are worried about spending extra over a period of time.

For more information on the types of software and hardware you can buy for your Gateway, please check the informational pages contained within this site. You may also find other Agent's recommendations and help essays by looking in the file database and help databases. For mission information, please check the rest of this database, for we shall be covering the different mission types and giving you hints and help for completing each type successfully.

We wish you much luck for your future as an Uplink Agent.
Though remember, if you are caught whilst attempting to hack into a system we shall disavow all knowledge of your existence and reclaim your Gateway.

Ravenshadow, Graded Uplink Agent

System Administrator of the Hacker's Shadow Database