**>> SPYNET BULLETIN **>> EARTHDATE 91.07.21 **>> AN H-by-A SERVICE **>> PAINT YOUR WAGON! (Our headline writing droid obviously likes that phrase - it's the third time it has used it in the last week!) As you all know, unless you've had your head in a bucket, Flatlander has had a busy week organising and judging the contest to find the best painted ship. In an exciting ceremony last night, he announced the winners. He told us that the judging was extremely difficult due to the large number of many fine entries. "There were many ships I would have liked to recognise individually" he said, "but time does not permit. I hope we can do this again in the fall!" Here we print extracts from the award ceremony: These are the benefactors of the Paint Your Spacesip Contest. They kindly donated groats or time to make it happen. (inelligible for the contest): [Faradizer] Trader Flatlander You feel an electric surge seeing this sinister steel grey ship, its lines broken only by fearsome weapons. A lightning bolt glows on the bow. [Venice] Russ, Squire of Haven Awed by the subtle lines and exquisite craftsmanship, you admire the gold-trimmed, blue translucent spire. Smiling, you make the link with Venice. [Odysseus] Oddball, Squire of Inversity You see a jet black ship with a high gloss finish...There are several batteries of twin lasers. Odd looks down from the figure 8 windows [Ocpac] Explorer Occy You notice the ultra sleek Ocpac, quite a different design that you have ever seen, with the sheath black and the twin lazers showing, perfectly dentless. [Alcohol] Hazed, Squire of Scratchwood The entire hull of the Alcohol is covered with posters exhorting you to rush out and buy a copy of the truly wonderful Idiot's Guide to Federation II. Here are the Honorable Mentions (with cash prizes) : HM1 [Allison] Explorer Oxcart 50,000 IG This ship is totally nude! You quickly avert your gaze to avoid embarassment... HM2 [Sszotz] Trader Zotz 50,000 IG The SS Zotz is covered in multi color swirls, flowers and peace symbols. A large emblem reads "We Love Cherry Garcia". HM3 [Skydragon] Commander Taliana 50,000 IG A sleek metallic black body with a neon pink underbelly. Not real good for camouflauge, but it does have that element of surprise. HM4 [Drak] Trader Spacet 50,000 IG You notice a blurr and an area of distortion. As it de-cloaks, it reveals a threatening black ship with it's twin TL's locked on you! You beat a hasty retreat. HM5 [Super] Adventureuse Atheeenai 50,000 IG Your head thrums to the familiar strains of Also Sprach Zarathustra as you strain your head back to look at the enormous black monolith towering above you. HM6 [Multidex] Commander Xanthan 50,000 IG There is a small black cube here. Near the white button is a notice: (Note: push button and stand WAY back!) FOURTH PLACE [Warranty] Trader Maxis 100,000 IG As you approach the Warranty, thugs appear and knock you out. When you awake, you find yourself naked and molested, with "Let's Do That Again!" on your chest. THIRD PLACE [Nemesis] Trader Krell 125,000 IG Obviously, the ship has had several nasty accidents. Repair droids swarm over the hull. The paint is flaking off, revealing patches of manky grey. SECOND PLACE [Snapshot] Captain Gullible 150,000 IG Through the window you see a pair of fuzzy dice. The cargo doors are tied shut with a wire coat hanger. There is a yellow sticker that reads:'CAPTAIN ON BOARD' FIRST PLACE [Condo] Merchant Galauriel 600,000 IG The Condo resembles a graceful opalescent eagle. Her gold-tipped wings slant upwards, as if she's descending, talons ready, upon her prey. We would like to say a very big THANK YOU to Flatlander for having put so much time into the contest, and congratulations to all the winners. Flatlander is thinking of organising a beauty contest next... we'll print the details in the news as soon as they are finalised! **>> SQUIRE STUFF Following the scandal of planetary treasuries plumetting into the red last weekend, Our Illustrious Leader immediately injected a lump sum of 10 meg into each planet's account in order to shore up the ailing economies. She then made some adjustments to stop the treasuries being instantly bled dry again! A loophole meant that under certain circumstances, the treasury was not receiving payment for goods consumed by the native population. That was the major source of the haemorrhaging, and she stitched that up in time (saving nine). (This paragraph has won an award for the most mixed-up metaphore to dare show its face in a news bulletin, ever). She changed the way native production and consumption was paid for - previously, it was calculated at base price; now production is charged at 20% less than the market rate, and consumption at the market rate. These amendments seem to have reversed the trend. Most treasuries have now been making profits of at least 20 meg a day. There probably won't be any further changes to the game this week, while Bella gauges the overall effect of the new planetary economies. **>> BLOODBATH! August is Hot Summer Nights - a month of promotions, contests and special events throughout GEnie. It goes without saying that Fed has something amazing planned! Towards the end of the month we will be holding a BLOODBATH! What's that, we hear you cry? A chance for you to rush around the Solar System blowing up everything that moves, with a chance of winning a vast amount of groats, and absolutely no risk to your persona! we answer. Sound like fun? We think so! Although we have been told that the H-by-A team will not be allowed to compete in the tournaments. Lucky for you, but disappointing for us. We'll have more details of the Bloodbath in next week's news. Watch this space! **>> SPOTLIGHT ON PHOENIX The first in a regular series of travel guides, showing you what is available on the new crop of planets that have recently been discovered in Fed Data Space. This week, we turn the H-by-A spotlight onto Phoenix, in the Deneb system, owned by Piemur. We started our explorations at the Interstellar Link. Moving north-west, we found the first planet - Lurasia. This planet is rich in minerals, and was colonised by an independant mining group, who do not recognise the authority of the Galactic Administration. Consequently, you can't land there at the moment - although it is likely that as Phoenix advances it will find a need for the valuable minerals and will re-assert its authority! West of Lurasia is Twilight, which houses the rich and the famous of the Deneb system, and consequently is another closed world. Those with vast wealth tend to protect their privacy, and security is fierce. To the north-west we find Derynl, another world where visitors are not encouraged. Here, scientists are undertaking highly dangerous research into the nature of the system's Wormhole - in particular, they are trying to find out why it moves about, and why it can be made to disappear temporarily if enough missiles and laser beams are fired at it! They encourage people to shoot at the Wormhole, and pay large rewards if anyone manages to make it vanish. As a side project, possibly to provide light relief from more weighty matters, the scientists are trying to find out why Newbods fly into stars so often. Their tentative conclusions are that someone is spreading rumours of vast amounts of treasure on the surface of stars, and the gullible Newbods are trying to get rich quick! South and South-east from Derynl is Deadmoon. This was once a satellite of Twilight, and was the centre of a vast network of Worldgates, spanning the entire Galaxy - and, some say, time itself! These Worldgates brought peace and prosperity to the Galaxy - but were ultimately the cause of the fall of that Empire. The entire economic, social and political systems were completely dependant on the instantaneous travel provided by the Gates, and when a stray asteroid crashed into the main Gate on Deadmoon, destroying the network of Worldgates, the Galaxy degenerated into anarchy and lawlessness. A small group are trying to restore the Worldgates, but while we wish them every success in their endeavour, we devoutly hope that the Galactic Administration does not become dependant on them! After visiting all the other bodies in the Deneb system, Piemur lead us north- east to Phoenix itself. An agricultural moon orbiting Twilight, it is currently the only freely accessible world in the Deneb system. Truth to tell, it's quite a bleak place! There are no mountains or hills, just endless plains where crops are grown and livestock grazed. Here and there, the unrelenting levelness is broken up by a small chasm, like the Chasma de Coronado (named after one of the early explorers) next to the Landing Area. Discounting farming, most of the activity on Phoenix takes place underground, in a complex network of tunnels and caverns. The surface level only has the Landing Area, the Shipwrights and the Phoenix branch of the famous space-port bar, the Starship Cantina. We were shown three of the underground levels - imaginately titled Level B, Level C and Level D. We found it rather unwelcoming and a little stark. Bloodstains in the corridors and other signs of unrest show that Phoenix is a troubled world. Piemur explained that, for some reason, the planet has attracted religious fanatics, split into many different factions worshipping many different Gods - 250 at the last count! Each religion obviously considers their creed to be the one true religion, and every member has vowed to convert or kill all rivals. Consequently, it isn't safe to roam the corridors after dark! The entire complex is riddled with secret passages, enabling those in the know to travel about without running the risk of being hit over the head with a religious icon! Level C is the commercial area, with the trading exchange, and assorted shops - including the rather sinister Spy Stuff! This Level also houses the infirmary. Level D has a small theatre - we were not impressed by the film that was showing - the insurance office and living quarters. An information booth on this Level gave us same basic facts about the planet, but Piemur admitted it was geared towards the casual tourist and not for in-depth reporters like the H-by-A team. We were also startled to discover store rooms containing vast quantities of weapons! Although Piemur told us the arsenals belonged to the various religious groups, we were not sure we believed him... the presence of several planet-buster Little Doctor weapons led us to speculate that he might be planning to invade other planets... We asked if we could attend a religious ceremony of some kind. Piemur shuddered at this idea and categorically refused! He did show us a Cathedral which was not being used at the time. It was quite impressive, with colourful murals on all the walls and ceiling showing assorted saints and martyrs, most of them coming to quite grisly ends. We asked what kind of ceremonies were held in the cathedral, but Piemur wouln't give any details, other than to mutter something about sacrifices and virgins! (Sounds like this could make a story of its own - we'll despatch one of our highly-trained investigative reporters and see what they can dig up.) The most powerful religions on Phoenix at the moment are those that follow the two gods Ufot and Etsat. They are in a struggle for dominance - the religious fanatics, that is, not the gods themselves (as far as we know) - and are conducting bloody crusades against each other. Not pleasant! Moving back to Level C, we were shown the trading exchange, which specialises in Agricultural goods. Traders should note the portal that provides immediate transport between the exchange and the landing pad. Finally, our tour finished in the Phoenix branch of Chez Diesel. A welcome sight was the large notice in the bar, prohibiting any discussion of religion! Here we relaxed after a somewhat harrowing tour, and refreshed ourselves with a much-needed drink. All in all, we found Phoenix a dour, sinister place. It's a monument of man's inhumanity to man, alien's inalienability to alien. But the planet is definitely worth a visit, if only to remind one of the evil that can arise from fanaticism! **>> WHO IS A POOR PERSON? When Krell made Merchant yesterday, he mentioned to Hazed that he supposed he would now be counted as a Rich Person. Oh no, she protested, you are still a Poor Person! Apparently she seems to think that the phrase describes anyone with less money than her. Since everyone (with the exception of Our Illustrious Leader) has less money than Hazed, that must make you all Poor People! **>> UNDOCUMENTED FEATURES There are odd things in Fed that you don't get told about in the documentation. Some of them are fairly irrelevant things - like being able to slide down the bannisters in the mansion on Earth - but others can be very useful. One such is the command. This is available to Merchants and over, and changes the way prices are displayed if you stand in a trading exchange. The command will stop you getting the constant stream, and instead will show you all the agricultural commodities at once! You can, of course, do this with the other commodity groups - mining, industrial, tech and leisure - and to return to the normal display you type . The reason this isn't documented is that Bella put it in as the first stage of a new activity for Merchants; speculation. But she couldn't decide how to proceed from there, so moved on to working on planets instead. Still, it is a very useful command! **>> COMMAND LIST BY GANDOLF Speaking of commands, many people have commented on the fact that there is no command summary for the game. Those jolly nice H-by-A people have been intended to add one to the instructions as a separate menu item, but just haven't got round to it. They claim that there just aren't enough hours in the day, but we think they are just too bone idle! Fed up with waiting for them to produce a list, Gandolf has made one of his own and uploaded it in the MPGames Library. It's file number 337 in the Fed Library (number 5). The file provides a comprehensive list, in alphabetical order, of the commands recognised by the game and is well worth downloading by everyone. Even Squires could benefit from this list. There is bound to be something that they didn't know about, or had forgotten. Only a few days ago, Piemur was heard asking how you tell the difference between a comm message and an xt message... (see pages 17 and 18 of the printed manual for the answer). **>> PROMOTIONS NEWS People are just not telling us when they get promoted! We sometimes pick up the odd promotion from the Review, but we know we aren't getting them all. If you don't mail us then we won't know about it. If we don't know about it, we can't report it. This week, we only know of three promotions: Flatliner has made Trader (not to be confused with Flatlander), Moose is also a new Trader, and Krell has made Merchant. Please, tell us how you are doing! Use the feedback option on the main Fed menu. Or we will have to drop this section of our weekly news bulletin. **>>CONTACTS The following information will appear at the end of every News Bulletin, so you don't have to read it if you already know it. In the event of a problem or question, you can: * talk to Hazed, Bella or Clem in the game * leave a message in the game log * send mail with the Federation Feedback option from the main menu You can order a copy of the unexpurgated printed Idiot's Guide to Federation II by typing ORDER at any GEnie menu. Cost - a mere $12.95. Federation II has a category in the new MPGames RT. To get there, type M1045,1 from any menu prompt and SET category 14. The Federation II Leader in the bulletin board is Occy (Mail ID: OCPAC). Topic 1 of the Fed category contains the Federation II policy statement. The MPGames RT also has a Federation II library in the files area, Library 5. **>> BULLETIN ENDS