**>> SPYNET BULLETIN **>> EARTHDATE 92.02.09 **>> AN H-by-A SERVICE **>> FIXES AND TWEAKS Just two changes to the game that you will have noticed over the last week. Have you noticed how the SpyNet Review, which gives details of promotions, deaths and new players, always gets clogged up with endless reports of Divvy payments, thus obscuring the more useful information? Well we have, so we asked Bella to do something about it. Being an obliging sort (after several Rigellian Green Chili Vodkas, anyway) she agreed. Now information about Divvies is now saved up until you log off, then one line is posted showing the total amount paid out. Much less cluttered! Bella has also fixed the bug in the whereabouts of the Grand Master. In order to advance to Trader, wannabes have to find the Grand Master to be admitted to the Traders' Guild. Every time the game fires up, it calculates a new position for the GM, at random, somewhere in the Solar System. The GM also moves every time someone finds him. Unfortunately, a bug meant that he only ever appeared on Castillo or Titan - two extremely easy planets to search! Now, this bug must have been there for months - possibly even years. Many people knew about it, and apparently it had become something that prospective Traders were told about as a matter of course. But no-one told any of the Fed staff about it. High-level players frequently talked about it being too easy to advance to Trader, but no-one told Bella why it was too easy! It wasn't until recently that the bug was mentioned - in passing - as an aside in a debate - and that was the first Bella, Hazed, or any of the Fed staff heard of it. The point is, if you discover something that you think is a bug, please let us know! Don't assume that someone else has told us. We'd rather receive spurious reports about something that turns out not to be a bug, than not be told about a bug that potentially could have very serious effects. In this case, the bug was not vitally important - it didn't put the game itself in danger - but it did seriously skew the balance of the ranks in the game. The bug has now been fixed; the GM has gone back to being completely random. This will, we are sure, encourage people to explore more than just the well- worn routes between landing pad, bar and trading exchange! [Here endeth today's lecture] **>> PLANET NEWS Polar's planet is now spinning happily in the heavens. It's called, naturally enough, Polaris. We sent a newsdroid to have a brief look at it but its report was a little garbled - Polaris is, again naturally enough, an icy watery world, so the newsdroid got a little rusty. It did say something about Skipperbear showing you a good time, but that was all! Scratchwood is back! At last, Hazed has a world over which she can preside. The smallest planet in the known Universe, Scratchwood is now a two-location planet! Here is a comprehensive list of the planets usually available: System Planet Owner Level Comments ------ ------ ----- ----- -------- Deneb Phoenix Piemur Leisure Mini Haven Haven Russ Leisure Mini Inversity Inversity Oddball Technical Mini Mebeskon Megalusa Rezrov Industrial Mini Hydro Zippy Occy Mining Mini Elwyn Scadia Elex Mining Mini Rigel Serendipity Merkin Mining Soon-to-be-mini Ibex Ocean Niun Agricultural Underwater world Gotham Gotham Krell Mining Soon-to-be-mini Quartus Quartus Sheffield Agricultural Space habitat Jinx Jinx Oxcart Mining Mini Bayside Bayside Baysidian Agricultural Residential world Selton Korrel Flatliner Agricultural Closely modelled on Zippy Route66 Scratchwood Hazed Leisure Micro Polaris Polaris Polar Agricultural Ice world A note for new players, who might not understand this "mini" business. When an Explorer builds a new planet, he, she or it is allowed up to 80 locations on the planet, as well as objects, mobiles, and puzzles. However, each of these takes up a lot of memory - more than the game has available! So once a planet advances from Agricultural to Mining, and its owner is promoted to Thane, their planet is replaced by a mini planet of up to six locations, written by them. When a player becomes a Thane, he is expected to write a mini-version of his planet pretty soon. Krell and Merkin have both recently been promoted, so will be turning their planets mini without delay. Bella has asked us to point out that if a new planet is ready to go in, and there is not enough room for it, then planets that should be mini but aren't will be removed to make room! You have been warned. **>> JUST WHAT IS YOUR NET WORTH? There have been questions about exactly how your networth is calculated, Can you can bear to see more official facts 'n' figures? Here is the definitive answer: Amount of groats in bank balance + Value of ship (at the amount you could receive when you sell it) - outstanding loan on your ship + warehouses owned (at full price, but goods stored in them not included) - reward value + spybeam and spyscreen (at half price) + stats purchased (at half price) + value of shares (profit last cycle x 10) + amount in planetary treasury + amount paid out for planetary promotions Phew! **>> CALL THIS BRIBERY? It is obvious that Fedders need a few lessons in grovelling, bribery, flattery and general abasement! Perhaps someone should organise a Grovelling School! Hazed popped into Fed in the early hours of this morning, and was accosted by that sexy Blackmark. He begged her to reset the game, because he had looked everywhere for an object but just couldn't find it. Hazed replied that she had no plans to reset, but perhaps he could persuade her otherwise. She sat back and waited for the grovelling to begin. Blackmarks first effort was: "Buy you a beer?" Hazed scorned this pathetic attempt to seem chummy, so Blackmark turned to more monetary methods: "Give you 150 groats... All right, then, 175... Well, 200 tops!" This failed to convince Hazed of his sincerity, so he became a little more personal: "I'll explore your planet - every last location." Yes, all two of them. Should take at least 10 seconds, if he dawdles. At this point, Our Illustrious Leader herself appeared so Blackmark turned his "charm"(!) onto her. As it happens, Bella was going to do a reset anyway... lucky for Blackmark! **>> IT'S NOT TRUE! Silversteel is distraught about a piece in last week's news that claims he is forced to pay for sex. He says it isn't true, and demands the right to prove to Hazed that he is quite capable of holding his own. (Or other people's.) We should point out that this allegation was not made by a newsdroid, but by one of our anonymous correspondents (you know - the ones with the ridiculous names). We can in no way be held responsible for the content of their reports, and make no claims about the truth, or lack of it, in their stories. So there! **>> BLACKMARK REPORTS... It was another day out in the Fed space for Blackmark. After spending all his money on ship repairs caused by Oxcart, Oddball, Rezrov, and even Krell it was time to make some money. Loading his ship with two of his latest droids built in one of his factories, one a simple trading droid the other a highly advanced fighter droid, he began his trading. After a short while he decided to let his trader droid have a break and let his fighter droid have some fun. Not wanting to jump right in to a heated battle with his new droid, Blackmark decided to fly into Flatliner's space and take some shots at that ship. Not too long after engaging battle, another ship entered the sector and started firing upon the Xxx. Disengaging the droid, Blackmark grabbed the ships controls and "jumped" back to sol space where he found safety on Mar's repair sheds. Realizing that the attacking ship was Oddball's Blackmark decided it was time he would pay. Jumping back into his ship Blackmark re-activated his attack droid and loaded his ship with missiles. Now for the trap. Going back into Flatliner's space, to the initial encounter, Blackmark engaged Flatliner's ship once more to grab the attention of Oddball and to let him know where he was. After a few moments Oddball appeared once again with his twin lasers firing but little did he realize that he wasn't going to leave Flatliner's space alive. Blackmark's droid kicked into full fighting mode blasting off missile after missile at Odd's ship until it was nothing more then a heap of floating steel. The battle was over and Oddball woke up to find himself in a hospital bed and a ship full of holes. **>> FROM THE THROAT OF POISON PEN... Just for variety's sake, we're going to have one long article today, rather than all those little bits divided up by witty sub-titles. There is no truth to the rumour that this is because we couldn't think of any witty sub-titles! Well, we'll start off with a juicy bit of scandal... We don't know if this is really true, or if the little groat-grubber who sold us the information was just making it up, but rumour has it that two planet owners - both of whose names begin with 'O', and neither of whom is Oddball - were spotted smooching it up in a certain trendy bar! [This bar, by the way, seems to be taking quite a bit of business away from Chez Diesel's lately... perhaps that's why Freya is said to be backing out of her recent partnership with The Divine Miss D and going into business for herself...] And what's all this about Rezrov? Has he had another... er... nervous breakdown? [Oh, we're not supposed to talk about that? Okay.] He's been acting quite irrationally lately - relaying bizarre messages over the airwaves, funding subversive terrorist activities [if rumours are to be believed...] The handsome Industrialist, known for his way with the ladies [Warning, girls, he's married, though he has been known to neglect to mention this!], has apparently put aside his romantic endeavours for a life of dirty tricks and violence. He's been seen on more than one occasion treating his allies - or should we say ex-allies? - to a bit of uncalled-for laser fire. Oxcart, for one, is rumoured to not be amused! There may be an explanation for all this... it seems that Rezrov's bizarre behaviour started shortly after he had a little accident while playing around with the ornamental torture rack in Krell's private dungeon bar... Perhaps he is not to be blamed, and we should just all feel sorry for him. We hear that Allen, Logan, and Krell had quite an interesting going-away party on Gotham recently... going-away for the planet, that is, which is being converted to a mini-planet any day now... This wild event, according to a close friend of one of the participants, included a dip in the sewer and a trip through the Tunnel of Love! We got no details on just what went on in there, but we can imagine. We tried to find Krell to ask her whether she considers Logan to be one of those elusive "real men", or just another one of her toyboys, but she could not be reached for comment. Frankly, we suspect the latter. Speaking of Logan, as you all probably know by now, he's been once again terrorizing the Solar System. Not only that, the captain of the flying fortress Sulaco has been keeping a record of each kill, and shamelessly bragging about them on the Bulletin Board! Apparently, two people have fallen dead-dead to Logan's lasers - by accident, says Logan, and we believe this, as Logan would be bragging about it and not apologizing if he ever did that on purpose. He has apparently been severely reprimanded for his carelessness, and has promised not to do it again. So if you must fly to Venus uninsured when Logan is about, please let him know, as he has sworn not to kill you until AFTER you have reinsured! And, on a final note, this week's Zippy Memorial Creative Spelling Award goes to Flatliner, for his unique 'Interstekellar Link" to Korrel. Nominations for next week's award are welcome! **>> FROM THE LARYNX OF YET ANOTHER ANONYMOUS CORRESPONDENT... Is there no decency left? This question kept surfacing in our minds as we listened in shock to preliminary reports about what can only be one of the most vulgar and obscene weeks in Fed history. Rather than spare your delicate sense of morals, our crack team of ever-present reporters investigated further so that we could bring you all the sordid details. Perhaps it was simply that St. Valentine's Day is almost upon us. Perhaps it was simply chance. Perhaps it was simply a case of overactive hormones. In any event it seems that the majority of the female Fedders chose to be on the same night at about the same time. Eventually they all wound up enjoying a quiet drink in Chez Diesel (Social Centre of the Solar System). Eventually people started reminiscing about times gone by and Catrina's now legendary strip-tease on the bar was brought up. Anial, not having witnessed it first hand, was unbelieving and went so far as to state that she could probably do a better job of it and proceeded to prove her point. Soon she was joined by Angel, Ashley, Morgana, Vixen, and Nick (short for Nicole we are told). Diesel was heard complaining bitterly about the bar giving way due to the enormous punishment it took, but Silversteel, Destiny, Camber, and Greyslayer couldn't find anything to complain about as they watched in stunned amazement. Suddenly, Lordecstasy wandered in to quench his thirst and unceremoniously swept Nick from the bar and began showering her with caresses. Human nature being what it is, things went rapidly downhill from that point. There are times when even we must draw the line about what is fit to be printed. However, that doesn't stop us from divulging who ended up paired with whom... Aside from Lordecstasy and Nick flinging themselves at one another in some dark corner, there were: Anial and Destiny, Morgana and Silversteel, Vixen and Greyslayer, Angel and Ashley and Camber (lucky man!). As if things weren't bad enough, our own Fearless Leader (name withheld) chose that moment to hobble in and see how things were going. They were going indeed! Journeyman Allen also decided to see what was happening and, upon witnessing the cavalcade, was so overcome by emotion that he took [censored]'s crutch away and forced his passions upon her. We hear that he now is close to paying off his ship and will soon be a Captain. We must also regretfully report that somone only identified as Mirth was seen in the Mare's Nest doing who knows what with Krell's dead marsrat. In other news: The dread pirate Monty was up to his usual business of raiding and plundering helpless ships when he happened across The Sulaco, his competition, and The Voodoo floating off of Venus moving in what was described as a "rythmic" way. Not to be undone, he then proceeded to seek out the good ship Yogert for some friendly grappling, but found only Krell's dead marsrat (see above) in it and decided to forget about the whole thing and join in the festivities near Venus. Who should come along but St. Pegasus, Defender of the Meek! Demanding a piece of the action, he was only given the dead marsrat as a consolation prize. We understand that it now enjoys a prominent display next to a stuffed horse's head in an unnamed bar. Industrialist Rezrov, having not been invited to any of the fun, resigned himself to video taping anything sinful he happened to see. He has since proposed legislation that from now on there will be no more Adult fun in Federation DataSpace. The proposal is now pending a Conclave vote. Regarding the recent reports linking Rezrov with terrorist activity, he had this to say. "This is an outrage! I have done absolutely nothing wrong! I just happened to be walking through the dark back alley as the deed was happening." Our question is "Why was Rezrov, planet owner and influential conclave member, walking in the dark alley in the first place?" And if he is not, as he states, fronting this unknown terrorist group, why has he been seen with a real estate agent? Why has he posted the asking price of a used planet? Is there more to this than meets the eye or is it a simple case of financial difficulty? Cq has recently been seen with waitdroids entering and leaving his ship. After further investigation, it seems Cq is able to go to his galley when parked on a planet and see what is going on. As a result, when a round or pizza is bought, the waitdroid makes a trip to his ship filled with all kinds of edible items and then leaves empty handed. In closing, we would like to caution that our spies are everywhere and even when they're not, there always seems to be an ample amount of "loose lips" to be found. Broken Pencil and Leaky Pen **>> WATCHING We've received reports that spying on Angel has become an Inter-System pastime shared by the Fed masses, human and alien alike. In fact, one well-known Merchant (Allen, who shall remain nameless) has even gone so far as to start a sweepstake on which of Angel's many lovers she will honour on a particular date. Of course, he insists that he is the favorite... Angel herself pleads the Fifth InterGalactic Amendment! **>> PROMOTIONS NEWS Axl, Morgana and Anial all made Adventurer recently. Congratulations, chaps and chapesses, not long till Trader! Lotus and Satriani are both new members of the Traders' Guild, able to turn for ever. Riccardo is now an explorer, and is working on his planet - a golfing world. Don't forget to tell us about your promotions, so we can mention then in the weekly Fed 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 by typing ORDER at any GEnie menu. Cost - a mere $12.95. Federation has several category in the new MPGames RT. To get there, type M1045,1 from any menu prompt and SET category 13 (for information, instructions, questions and answers) or 14 (for general chat and discussions). The Federation Leader in the bulletin board is Krell (Mail ID: K.HILLYER). There are also categories for Explorers and for the Conclave; these are run by Occy (Mail ID: OCPAC). The MPGames RT also has a Federation library in the files area, Library 5. Library 18 holds the Federation News Archives. **>> BULLETIN ENDS