**************************************** * * * FEDERATION DATA SPACE NEWS SERVICE * * * * from * * H-by-A * * * * September 23 1990 * * * **************************************** JP TIME AGAIN ------------- The big excitement this week has once again been a prospective JP beating his brow over the fiendish puzzle. You will recall that we reported in last week's News that Santiago was just a few stats short of the requirement. But he seems to have had other concerns over the past few days, and has been pipped to the post by Piemur. Early this week, Piemur gained the necessary stats and set out to kill Monty (the first part of the quest). He had some difficulty here, despite having been one of the stars of the fighting lessons at the recent Hunt, and got blown to little pieces several times by the vicious twin lasers of the Pirate. Fortunately, he remembered to re-insure himself each time! In between tries he traded like a demon to make the groats to buy himself more missiles. He has to use missiles because his intelligence is fairly feeble, so he cannot use a ship's computer large enough to make twin lasers a viable proposition against someone as powerful as Monty. Eventually he decided to buy himself the largest ship he could get, cover it with so much armour it would barely lift off, and try to stay alive long enough to pump sufficient iron into Monty's hull. It has been said that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, but in this case brute force proved to be a winning strategy, and he successfully offed the Pirate and was given the next piece of the puzzle. He swanned through the next few stages with no trouble, but was stumped for a time by the need to find a password which would gain him access to the Naval Intelligence terminal. He tried his best hacking strategies, but the security system was too much for him. On the verge of giving up and sinking into a morass of despair, he had a brainwave and finally realised the answer! The computer gave him his assignment - the task he would have to undertake in order to gain his promotion. And no easy task it is! He is currently scratching his head, trying to work out how to accomplish this task. With the assistance of Trader Occy he is experimenting with different solutions, but so far with little success. He hasn't yet managed to blow up the Martian Ruins completely (one of the perils of failure) nor has he killed his helper - but we are sure this will come. Over the next few weeks, we are sure you will see a large smoking crater where the ruins used to be, probably on more than one occasion! THE PEOPLE'S FRIEND ------------------- As we said, Santiago has not been giving his all to increasing his stats over the last week. Instead, he has become the People's Friend and has been lavish with groats, lending and giving a great deal of money to Poor People. Such altruism! Isn't it heartwarming to know that there is some decency and generosity left in this cruel world in which we live? What a very very very nice man! But wait! Could there be, perhaps, an ulterior motive for his behaviour? Could these hand-outs possibly be caused by some slightly more selfish motive than pure love of his fellow man, woman and thing? You may call us cynical, but we are convinced that he is, in fact, buying the loyalty of lower players in anticipation of the later stages of the game. The highest three or four ranks will be extremely political in nature, and grassroots support will be vital. Santiago, is this the truth? Are your goals so long-term that you already covet the Emperor's Throne? We, the People, demand an answer! FACTORY STUFF ------------- Following Piemur's meteoric rise to the top of the Conclave, Lady has shot up to second place because of the successful management of her string of factories. At the rate Piemur is having to spend money on re-insurance, we could see him toppled very shortly. Speaking of factories, you recall the problem over base prices that we reported in last week's News? Painstaking research has revealed that it was all Our Illustrious Leader's fault! It appears that Livestock was originally valued highly, but when factories were introduced to the game, it was decided (logically enough) that Livestock would be a raw material for Meat. Therefore, the price of Livestock had to be reduced - otherwise Meat would not have been a profitable commodity to produce. However, Bella forgot to tell the H-by-A writers it had been changed, and the correction never found its way into the documentation. She, of course, is refusing to admit that the whole sorry business is in any way due to her omission, but we know better. The only person affected by this was Stupid, who had bought a Livestock factory on the basis of the prices shown in the documentation. He has been reimbursed for the factory and has bought a new one with which he can reap vast rewards. He hopes! Still on factories, the discussion in last week's News of the way factories affect networths has resulted in a few questions from bemused Managing Directors. One query is the affect on company profitability, and therefore on networths, of issuing a dividend. Issuing a divvy has absolutely no affect on company profitability whatsoever. Money that is sitting in the company's bank account is idle money and the only things you can do with it are to pay the shareholders a divvy, or to expand the company and buy another factory. If you do issue a divvy, in fact your networth will rise, since the money is going from the company bank balance, where it is not counted towards the Networth, into your own bank balance, where it is taken into account. Should you later need to put more money into the company for expansion, you simply issue some more shares, at which point your networth will fall again. A by-product of all the industry, particularly on Earth, is the shortage of certain trading commodities. Whenever a factory is in operation, the native production of the commodity will be suppressed. And since factories remain running for some time after the owner logs off, this means that some people are experiencing difficulty getting hold of the commodities they need to run factories of their own. The solution to this is simple. Find the person whose factory is blocking production of your required commodity, and kill them. Or if this seems a little drastic, come to some arrangement whereby they will supply your needs - goods can be sold to other players using the command. Alternatively, start up a factory producing the missing commodity yourself. DID YOU KNOW...? ---------------- That a spybeam costs 2 megagroats - but pays for itself in fun instantly! That there is a public spybeam that anyone can use to watch other players, so long as they can find its hiding place! That one of the advantages of having a spybeam is that it makes it far easier to help new players - if you can see what they are doing wrong, you can tell them what they should be doing! That you can land your ship even if you have run out of fuel - but it will damage the hull. TH-TH-TH-THAT'S ALL, FOLKS! ---------------------------