**>> SPYNET BULLETIN
 **>> EARTHDATE 91.09.29
 **>> AN H-by-A SERVICE


 **>> ECONOMIC UPGRADES

The Galactic economy showed a huge upswing last week, with several planets
being upgraded, and many people profiting from the unexpected bonus of their
property increasing in value.

Phoenix, Haven and Inversity - the worlds belonging to Piemur, Russ and Oddball
- are now mining worlds, and the Governors have been promoted to Thane.
Scratchwood, Hazed's world, has been returned to leisure.

These upgrades mean that the trading exchanges have been re-rolled. If you
thought you knew which goods the planets in question produced, and which they
gave good prices for, you don't any more! Anyone with macros that automatically
buy and sell will have to rewrite them to take account of the change in goods
bought and sold.

Certain crafty speculators used the prospect of the upgrade to make a quick
killing, by building factories on the worlds before the change, and selling
them afterwards at a vast profit. In particular, the value of property on
Scratchwood zoomed up by a factor of five! Those who only thought of this after
the event are kicking themselves, hard!

Hazed herself is rather disgruntled to find that she is a Thane. She was hoping
that the ascension of her planet to a leisure economy would see her remain a
Squire. She will be collecting signatures on a petition to persuade the
Galactic Administration to demote her from a status of Thanity to what she sees
as her rightful position in life. Supporters should leave messages on the
notice boards in the bars.


 **>> TOO YOUNG TO SEE NEW WORLDS

We received a plaintive cry from a Captain, who wanted to know why he was not
allowed to use the Interstellar Link and visit other worlds. He thought it was
really unfair that only Adventurers, or those who had played 100 games, could
leave the Solar System.

Our Illustrious Leader, Bella, had a very good reason for restricting access to
player-planets. In general, it's quite hard to die in Fed. The Solar System is
a relatively safe place. Earth, where new players begin, has no hazards at all.
Short of suiciding, the only way to suffer an untimely death on Earth is to
starve to death!

Once a new player ventures into the Interplanetary Wastes, the mobiles will not
attack unless provoked, and if a Commander can avoid flying into the sun he
shouldn't have any accidents. The few deadly locations in the Solar System are
in fairly obscure places - you won't trip over them by accident - and they have
warnings as you approach.

The same cannot be said for player-planets. Planet builders can, if they
choose, make every single location a death-trap (although they wouldn't get
many visitors once word got around). There's also a risk that when a new planet
is put into the game, errors in the movement table might trap people on the
planet.

By the time you get to Adventurer, or have completed 100 games, you should have
some idea what is going on, and would be able to cope with this kind of hazard.
But a totally new player could have a truly horrendous experience if he, she or
it stumbled onto a player-planet unawares. So that's why there is the
restriction.


 **>> WHAT'S BEEN GOING ON?

There's been a few minor problems during the week, following on from the major
Crash and Burn last week. Various little problems have combined into one big
problem, and players have been experiencing some strange effects. Bella has
been hitting the bugs over the head as she finds them, and one by one they are
being eliminated.

Once she is satisfied that things are back to normal (or as normal as life ever
is in Fed Data Space), she will let the game run for a few days - just to make
sure. Then she'll get back to work on improvements and enhancements.


 **>> WHAT IMPROVEMENTS AND ENHANCEMENTS WILL THAT BE, THEN?

An excellent question! We're glad you asked.

Bella's main priority will be to implement the rotation of planets. This is a
matter of urgency, since there are at least four planets ready to go in, and
not enough memory for them!

Poor Elex has been waiting for quite a while to see his world actually linked
to the game. Bella put it in last week, then reset the game... and discovered
to her horror that there was only room for 10 players to log on! So she had to
remove the planet again, and Elex will have to wait till rotation is in.

Bella will be starting work towards the end of the week, and she estimates
about a week's work will be involved. We have no information about exactly how
rotation will work, and we hope to be able to explain in next week's news.

She will also be working on the Explorer's Workbench. She wants to put a
checking facility in, that will highlight possible errors before the planets
are linked into the game. For example, both Piemur and Occy had set flags that
indicated that there were two trading exchanges on their planets. This caused
the game to complain and throw up whingeing error messages. Occy also made a
lot of mistakes in her movement table, one of which allowed people to fly their
spaceships around on the surface of the planet! The game didn't like that at
all.


 **>> BAYSIDIAN'S DEATH - THE TRUE STORY

Following our report in last week's news that Gandolf had offed his best buddy
Baysidian, we received this report from Gandolf himself:

How Bay went Bye-Bye Bay B
++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Deep in the night, in CD's a little voice came over my comm unit...
(hey..) it said...(want some money?). Now I've heard that one before. (like 7
meg?) it asked.  Hmmm. 7 meg. I had to reply.

I wish I hadn't. Seems like my newfound buddy on Fed, Baysidian, has
decided to end it all and wanted to be generous to my wallet. >sigh<

So after the monies were distributed and goodbyes being said tearfully, we came
head to head in a heated battle North of Earth orbit. Sparks flew and the
manouvers were fantastic! zipping around and Twin Lasers firing, we went round
after round until I came flying through a cloud of debris, all that was left of
poor Baysidian. >sigh<

Actually, he was unarmed and had no armour. My first shot winged off his aft
section, (the ship, buddy. Aft section of the SHIP), and he skitted out of the
sector... but he came back for more. My next shot destroyed his rear and I then
casually flew around to face him... face to face for the final thrust. I could
see him sadly waving godbye as I pulled the trigger.....

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Never mind, Gandolf, the tragic loss of your friend was somewhat mitigated by
the large amount of money he left you in his will!


 **>> ALL CHANGE IN THE BBS

For quite some time, there have been two private and hidden categories in the
BBS, one for Explorers to discuss planetary construction and Squires to talk
about economies, and another for the Conclave to discuss their business.

These categories have now been moved, and have been un-hidden. They are still
private, though - no-one can read the messages in them unless they have been
given admittance.

The new categories are 43 for Explorers, and 44 for the Government.

There are two new Libraries for Fed. Explorers have library 39, and the
Government has 38. This is in addition to the general Fed library, 5, and
Library 18 for the News Archives.

Occy will be continuing to run the weekly Fed RTCs, every Tuesday at 10.00 pm
Eastern time.


 **>> PROMOTIONS NEWS

You're all getting slack again - you are not telling us when you get promoted.
How do you expect us to run a news service if you won't tell us your news?

These are the promotions we spotted during the week:

Oddball, Piemur, Russ, and Hazed all became Thanes.

Niun was promoted to Explorer - and has been working hard on his planet.

Zippo showed amazingly bad timing, by making it to JP just after we
finished last week's news.

Helio was promoted to to Merchant.


 **>>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 <TYOP> 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 MPGmes RT also has a Federation II library in the files area, Library 5.
Library 1 holds the Federation II News Archives, with all previous editions
of the news. It is updated every few weeks.

 **>> BULLETIN ENDS