**>> SPYNET BULLETIN **>> EARTHDATE 92.07.19 **>> AN H-by-A SERVICE **>> Compiled by Hazed plus a team of specialist newsdroids **>> your news and gossip and get paid good groats! **>> SOME OF OUR PERSONAS ARE MISSING Panic ensued earlier this week when a whole bunch of personas went missing. Players who logged on in the early hours of the morning, or during the day, found they were being asked to set up a new character. Thankfully, those involved contacted Bella immediately and she was able to sort the problem out before the end of prime-time. However, as a result, a few of the player-generated planets were out of the game for the night - including Oddball's world. The absence of his planet meant that his networth plumetted and he lost his place as Leader of the Conclave. Such are his personal riches that he managed to scrape in at sixth position, even without his planet treasury to bolster his wealth. This left Piemur as Ruler of the Universe, albeit temporarily. Could he possibly be to blame for the problems? While elevated, Piemur attempted to declare martial law, but no-one took any notice of him. He was last seen attempting to fan the flames of discontent among the workdroids on Gotham, inciting them to rise up against their despotic ruler, Krell. **>> NEW FOR PLANET BUILDERS As mentioned in last week's news, there is now a workbench flag that lets you specify an object as a musical instrument. All we need now is for the Galactic Administration to relax the customs laws that prevent objects being taken from one system to another, so we can form a band to perform in Chez Diesel! More importantly, Bella has added a new feature to the Workbench Checker. It will now throw up an error if your movement table has a space location connected to a non-space location. The occasional phenomenon whereby players get lost in space without their ship, or fly their ships around on the ground, is caused by this error. The game gets totally confused and people get stuck. All locations in space - including the Interstellar Link - should be flagged 'S' for Space. Planet owners should ensure they run their files through the checker, and fix any of the problems it throws up, before they ask Bella to copy the files into the game. If players do find that they've fallen through somewhere and the game doesn't know where they are, they should sell their spaceship and use the command. The game will then locate them easily. If that doesn't work, they will have to (provided they are insured, of course!). They should then apply to the owner of the planet which caused the problem for compensation. Earlier today, a new Adventurer called Valleystream found himself stuck on Brewski. He couldn't get out of his ship, nor could he take off. He didn't know what could have caused this, and thought it was a trap set up by the owner of Brewski, Otoole. Satriani helped him to recover from the "lostness", but Valleystream was angry about it and accused Otoole, over the comm unit, of deliberately trapping him. A big argument ensued, harsh words were exchanged, and Otoole put a reward on the Poor Person and shot him down. Now that he realises what caused the problem, Valleystream wants to apologise to Otoole, but he thinks Otoole should apologise to him for his bad attitude. (The H-by-A staff would like to point out that Valleystream should not take Otoole's bad attitude personally; Otoole has a permanent attitude problem.) Otoole says he was sorely provoked by Valleystream, but if the Adventurer will refrain from provoking him in the future, he will refrain from killing him! **>> DUKE PUZZLE UPDATE Oddball is still the only Baron to have completed his time machine and done the through to Horsell. He is continuing to explore this strange loophole in the fabric of time and space. Piemur has stated that once he has finished his time machine, he will go back and give himself the solution to the JP puzzle. What effect this will have on the present we will just have to wait and see! **>> THE NEWS ARCHIVES Anyone who is absent from the game for a while, but wishes to keep up with the new features and player scandals, can download old issues of the Weekly News Bulletin from the News Archive. Library 18 in the MPGames Libraries holds all the issues of the news, and Hazed has just uploaded a new batch bringing them up to date to last weekend, May 12. **>> TRUE LOVE... NOT! Dyars and Kittycat appear to no longer be a couple - but it is unclear who is deserting whom. We know that Dyars intends to be away from Fed Data Space for some time, so maybe he has left her - but she was seen spending the whole night talking to Mirth recently, so perhaps she's the unfaithful one. At least she hasn't returned to Bochiman! Speaking of Mirth, he and Trista have finally stopped missing each other, although Trista had apparently drunk so much gin that when they actually met she didn't recognise him! Speaking of Dyars, we understand his absence from the game is because he is having a bionic knee fitted. Best wishes, Dyars, we hope it goes well. Hurry back! **>> PROMOTIONS NEWS Satriani finally solved the fiendish GM puzzle, then went on to make Explorer. We await his planet with eager anticipation. Mizzcreant and Brawn both made it to Trader - well done! Don't forget to tell us about your promotions and we will mention it in the news. **>>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 GEnie 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 categories 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