**>> SPYNET BULLETIN **>> EARTHDATE 92.06.07 **>> AN H-by-A SERVICE **>> Compiled by Hazed plus a team of specialist newsdroids **>> your news and gossip and get paid good groats! **>> BEAM ME UP SCOTTY! A major new commands threatens to make spaceships completely obsolete. At least, it would except that only the extreme upper echelons can use it, so the workthings at Jarrow Shipbuilders can put down their strike ballots. As part of the Duke puzzle, Barons have to build lots of technical facilities on their planet, and a side effect of one of the facilities lets them hop around the Galaxy in the twinkling of an eye using the command. The syntax is . "System" can be a planet name or a system name. "Address" is the teleportation address - within each system, every location has a unique number which is the address. There are some limits to the command. You cannot teleport into or out of your ship, nor on or off Snark. But you can teleport into deadly locations, in which case you will suffer the consequences. The most useful address in the Solar System is 245 - Chez Diesel, Social Centre of the Solar System. Landing pads of the planets are as follows: Earth 426 Mars 225 Castillo 91 Titan 130 Moon 131 Mercury 626 Venus 531 You will no doubt discover other useful addresses yourselves. At the moment, none of the players can actually use this command, although those who have embarked on the Duke puzzle (Russ, Oddball, Piemur, Polar and Niun as far as we know) will be able to when they have built the necessary facility. When the command first went in, only Bella and Hazed could use it. Hazed had great fun teleporting to random addresses, and was amazed to find out how lucky she was at picking deadly locations at the first try! She made Cryptosporidium so jealous at her ability to pop around faster than the speed of light that it actually GROVELLED to Bella to be given the ability to use the command! Our Illustrious Leader was so surprised to see a polite request from The Vile One that she granted it instantly - and next time Cryptosporidium logged on, it found itself Baroness of . Yes, that's right, Baroness of complete blank. Baroness of nothing at all. Baroness of not a sausage. Baroness of [No planet]. Cryptosporidium's Baroness-ness is entirely virtual. Thus we launch a competition. Suggest a name for Cryptosporidium's planet, which is even more non-existant than the legendary Scratchwood. The best suggestion will win... oh, we'll come up with a fairly insignificant prize, no doubt. your ideas to Hazed. **>> DEATH, WHERE IS THY STING? Fed's policy has always been that players who die dead-dead will not be reinstated unless it can be proved that a bug caused their demise - no matter what rank they are or how well-loved. The Galactic Administration has now announced a new policy for planet owners that foolishly die dead-dead. No, they won't be reinstated either! However, their planet will stay in the game while they work their way back up the ranks, and as soon as they make Explorer they will be automatically bumped back up to the rank that matches their planet. While they are clawing their way back up, their planet will accumulate money (and player time if applicable), but they won't be able to draw on the treasuries, or to do anything to their planet. They can, however, borrow large sums of groats from other planet-owners, to be paid back once they regain their former position. No doubt at a ruinous rate of interest! **>> AN APOLOGY Earlier in the week, some of you may have experienced "strangenesses" with the output from Fed. Some players were reporting text overwriting the previous line as it was displayed, but others noticed nothing wrong. Bella admits that it's something she did which affected line feeds. She fixed it the next day, and apologises for the inconvenience. **>> FIGHTING SCHOOL Here are the details for those of you wishing to learn about offence (and defence) in Fed. The Fighting School will be held in two parts - Theory and Practice. The Theory session will be in the MPGames RTC on page 1045, next Sunday June 14 at 3.00 eastern. Krell will explain how the varous weapons work, how much damage they do, what protection is afforded by shields and armour, and other vital information for the violent types. She'll also cover how Poor People can avoid getting caught in the middle of other people's rows! A week later, Sunday June 14, the Practice session will be held in Fed Data Space at 3.00 eastern. We haven't been told who will be running this session yet, but it will give you a chance to practice your new skills without any permanent damage to your persona. **>> CHANGES IN BBS Krell has been spring-cleaning in the Fed BBS on page 1045. She's got rid of old messages from topics that were getting very large, and has uploaded archives of interesting stuff into the Library. File 1697 contains an archive of Cat 13 Topic 18, the Suggestion Box. It covers discussions about spybeams and requirements for ranks, among other things. File 1698 has archived messages from Cat 13 Topic 18, Macros and Scripts. File 1701 contains the agonising from the Post-Valentine's Day Massacre topic. Krell has started a new topic - Cat 16, Topic 6 - for advertisements. Poor People wanted jobs from Rich People, factory owners offering to build, planet owners wanting traders to visit or CEOs to build factories - this will be the ideal place for all these messages. Krell has also revitalised the discussion about role-playing in Cat 14 Topic 19. **>> FRIENDS IN HIGH PLACES An anonymous informant informs us that Trader Serge was cruising around the Interplanetary Wastes with over 25 meg burning a hole in his pockets. Most Traders (and Merchants and Explorers) never have more than about 5 meg for pocket money, so either Serge has some very generous friends, or he robbed someones planetary treasury! **>> NEW VARIETY OF PIZZA AVAILABLE FROM CHEZ DIESEL We received the following information from Niun: "I've decided to stop selling bits and pieces of the scientists to the cloning labs. I think I've been using the wrong methods to get the scientists to work harder on getting Ibex systems sun restarted. Maybe it is difficult for these folks to do their job missing various and sundry body parts the way they are. "Apparently they have managed to smoke the interstellar link to Ibex system so it temporarily became impossible to trade on my planet. "I do have some more body parts for sale to the cloning labs but these are from the scientists families so may be somewhat undersized for most uses since they are coming from sons and daughters of the scientists." **>> A LADIES' MAN We've been told that Dyars was seen "helping" new players. He escorted Jewel and Cinderella, two charming young ladies, to Samantha's and taught them how to hug and kiss. Next time, he hopes they will hug and kiss him rather than each other! **>> PROMOTIONS NEWS Congratulations to Illyra who made it to Explorer this week, and will now start work on a planet. Jim that used to be Slipperyjim (not to be confused with Jim that used to be Jimhuge (well probably still is Jimhuge even though he hasn't been seen for ages)) has returned after many months absence. Welcome back! Bochiman is a Squire and his new planet Hell is open for business. This has prompted his popular advertisement feature where he tells people to "Go to Hell!" We now expect smartarses to build planets call Jail and Bed. **>>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 or Bella in the game * leave a message in the game log * a message to Hazed or Bella * 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. (New edition will be available shortly!) 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 private categories for Explorers, run by Krell, and for the Conclave run by Oddball (Mail ID: D.STALZLE). The MPGames RT also has a Federation library in the files area, Library 5. Library 18 holds the Federation News Archives. **>> BULLETIN ENDS