The Ni-like Ag 13.9 nm x-ray laser has been previously demonstrated that the higher gain near critical surface contributes little to the amplification of the x-ray laser because of severe refraction. In this paper, the transient collision excitation （TCE） Ni-like Ag 13.9 nm x-ray laser is simulated, driven by two 3 ps short pulse preceded by a 330 ps long prepulse, optimization of the peak to peak delay time of the two short pulses is made to get the best results. Simulation indicates that by producing lowly ionized preplasma with smoothly varying electron density, it is possible to decrease electron density gradient in higher density region, and thus higher gains near this region could be utilized, and if the main short pulse is delayed by 900ps, local gains where electron density larger than - 4 × 10^20 cm^-3 could be utilized.
