**>> SPYNET BULLETIN **>> EARTHDATE 92.11.29 **>> AN H-by-A SERVICE **>> Compiled by Hazed plus a team of specialist newsdroids **>> your news and gossip and get paid good groats! **>> YOU ASKED FOR IT... YOU GOT IT! Bella has proved yet again that she's open to ideas from the players. Last Sunday's RTC was scheduled to cover all the recent changes to the game, and it was expected that it would be a general griping and moaning session. As indeed it was! But it was mostly the Dukes who were doing the moaning. Occy, Krell and Oddball were discussing the way duchies work, and whingeing about not having enough to do. They came up with a number of suggestions that would give their lives more meaning. The transcript of the conference was immediately sent to Bella, and when she read it she set about providing some of the requested features. The moral of the story is that it's always worth making suggestions about changes to the game. Bella considers them all. An overwhelming number of the features of the game stem from player ideas and comments - in fact some of them actually -were- players! [Footnote for the uninitiated: both Pegasus and Diesel are based on people who played the game way back in the dawn of time.] **>> THE CHANGES The new features allow Dukes to participate in the running of the planets in their domains, and to derive some income from them. Dukes can once again build factories, so they'll be able to help their planet owners produce the goods needed. The factories will run in just the same way as factories owned by lower players do. Dukes can also buy production points for their planets. The command is . Each point costs 25 meg - obviously, you can only do this for planets in your own duchy! The point is added to the "native" production of the planet, and it is not re-allocatable. If the planet promotes, all extra points are lost when the exchange is re-rolled. If a planet secedes from the duchy, they don't lose the points. The Dukes are currently debating whether the price of production points should vary depending on the level of the commodity involved. Bella hasn't yet decided whether to take up this suggestion. Dukes now get a slice off the top of everything the planet makes. They have a personal account on each planet, and 10% of all changes to the planet's treasury are added to this account. Or subtracted, if the planets lose money! They can retrieve this money by typing . This will bring the account on all their planets to zero and add the result to their personal bank balance. They'll be shown how much was taken from each planet, and the total. If most of their planets have been losing money, they'll have money deducted from their personal balance to top the planet accounts up to zero - so it's going to be in their interests to help their planet owners make a profit! Do we hear any suggestions that the command should also work when they type ? At the same RTC, Dynamo suggested the idea of a portable link. This portalink would be purchased and installed in the ship (for an enormous sum of groats, obviously!), and it would enable the owner to from any point, not just in the link. Presumably one would have to be in space; we can't quite envisage people jumping direct from Chez Diesel, pint in hand! Bella is thinking about this one... **>> COMING SOON... Bella is going to tamper with the rate that exchanges run, so they work even faster when a planet owner is online. This will make the difference in profits between planet owners who spend time in the game and those who don't even greater. Bella is considering making it a requirement for Dukes to build a Naval Base somewhere in their duchy. They will have to do a deal with one of their planet owners to determine the best planet to build on. The planet that is chosen will benefit from all those bored sailors rushing around spending money! **>> SNOWBALL FIGHT! Next weekend is Santa's workshop, and Fed will be having a room to talk all about role-playing. The event will culminate in a snowball fight, starting in the workshop then moving back to Fed! Santa's Workshop is being held in the National RTC at 7.00 eastern time, for three hours, on Saturday December 5. The event will be free, so please come along and help us - the more of you who turn up to talk to interested new people, the better! **>> THE WINNER! Bella has decided that the winner of the Free Weekend in Fed is Condor. He sent in an excellent set of art depicting all the trading commodities. Anyone who is still working on their drawings, please continue to send them in, so there will be some alternative graphics for the Fed terminal. The "best of the rest" will receive a prize of a free day in Fed. **>> THE FEUD HOTS UP The hostility between Occy and Oddball really flared up during last week's RTC. As well as moaning about how awful it is to be a Duke, the two were hurling insults at each other. The transcript of this RTC is now available in the MPGames libraries, it's file no. 2331. Occy is certainly pulling ahead of Oddball in the game. He's displaced Odd as Leader of the Conclave, and has persuaded many planets to ally with Zippy. The state of the duchies looks like this: Inversity is allied with five systems: Elwyn, Quartus, Jinx, Zodiac and Neutarus. Zippy also has five systems: Deneb, Brewski, Xixax, Hell and Regulus. Megalusa has three: Ibex, Oberon and Dahih. Scratchwood has two: Vitro and Muse (Tristesse is offline for a few days). Gotham still has only one system: Cabal. Haven, Harlequin and Rhylannor prefer to remain independent. Occy seems to be the only Duke to be persuading planet owners to join him, and he's been courting many of them. He's persuaded Condor to leave Megalusa and join Zippy, and Brewski is also a new member. CQ and Khan are under pressure to join Zippy, and the planets already in the duchy are doing their best to persuade others that it's the best place to be. Are we heading for a super- duchy, with Occy dominating the traders' loyalties and the others left outside? Since Piemur will probably become a Duke as well in the next week, how will the appearance of yet another duchy affect things? We're in for some interesting times! **>> ADVERTISEMENT CORNER Condor has submitted yet another ad: This is the LAST WEEK to try to solve Rookery's puzzle and earn your 10,000,000 IG reward!!! Just ONE WEEK REMAINS before I change my puzzle to make it more challenging, more difficult, as well as more rewarding! Take advantage of your final opportunity to earn a 10,000,000 Groat reward this week, before it is gone FOREVER!!! He's also asked us to print the following message (which is not an advertisement): Condor would like EVERYONE who has solved Rookery's puzzle to SEND him a message, regardless of whether or not you want the reward or have already received it. This is to insure that his files are correct and to provide recognition for those who have completed the puzzle. **>> WHO'S DOING WHAT TO WHOM, AND WHERE? Where has all the gossip gone? Either you're all behaving yourself, or you're being so discreet that no-one finds out about it, or you're just refusing to spill the beans to our newsdroids. We only managed to dredge up two measley pieces of gossip this week: Tyiez and Dennistheimmpossiblylongnamedmenace have been dallying in Sam's, and possibly in other places as well. Kimos and Marcia were accidentally dragged back in time to Horsell when Piemur last tried to solve the Duke puzzle, and were forced to amuse themselves in each other's company - which apparently was no hardship! **>> SPYNET REVIEW There's been an enormous number of promotions this week, you must have all been working extra-hard. Congratulations to you all. The Captains are: Blackhawk, Total, Blackjack, Jude, Attilad, Ariel, Star, Trikam, Jatarin, Ragner, Candide, Dasd, Rachet, and Quaudiker. Phew! Three of the new Captains went right on to make Adventurer: Total, Ariel and Jatarin. Star also became an Adventurer. As if that wasn't enough, Total and Ariel became Traders too! The other traders are Mattster, Tyiez, Star and Pixel. Hawkman and Killiam were both promoted to Merchant, and bought themselves companies. Hawkman is the CEO of Prey Enterprises and Killian of Buy company Shillelaghs and Sha. Hmmm... bit of a mistake, there! Patch and Giskard both solved the awesome JP puzzle (in Giskard's case despite the hindrance of other players). Topper made it to GM and almost immediately became an Explorer. There have been no new Squires for quite some time. There's a lot of Explorers working on their planets, and we await them eagerly. Dane advanced his planet to technical, and was promoted to Technocrat. There were two dead-deaths during the week. Both Starlock and Trikam died. We don't know the cause of either death. Finally, Khan has played 1000 games! **>>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