**>> SPYNET BULLETIN **>> EARTHDATE 93.01.17 **>> AN H-by-A SERVICE **>> Compiled by Hazed plus a team of specialist newsdroids **>> your news and gossip and get paid good groats! **>> NEW STUFF! After completing FedTerm, and getting a second version out in a very short period of time, Our Illustrious Leader is now back to work on the game itself. The main change of the week was that planet owners can now write jobs directly into the Transportation Central display. This will make the difference in earnings even greater between those governors who spend time on the game, and those that don't. The command is . Price refers to the groats per ton you will pay for haulage. Jobs are made up in 250 ton lots (if you don't have 250 tons of the commodity the job won't work, nor will it work if the job display is full). The jobs will work in the same way as those generated by milkrun slots - if nobody does the job, Transportation will attempt to fulfil the contract itself. The jobs can be split into part-loads for those with smaller ships. This kind of job pays 4 trader points. Bella had a rather frustrating time testing this new feature. She has Fed running on her computer at home, with a limited number of personas for her to play with, but she didn't have a planet-owning persona set up. So she had to write herself a planet. She called it the first thing that came into her head - Void (obviously describing what is usually found in her head) - but, of course, there's a command in the game so the planet wouldn't load. Even when she'd changed the name and got the planet into the game, she had to wait around while the exchange manufactured 250 tons of something! **>> OTHER CHANGES The command can now be shortened to . This was requested by Occy, who was finding it terribly hard to keep up-to-date with the changes to his vast domain of planets - and he's never been a very good typist. Dukes buying production points for the planets in their duchies will find the pricing structure has changed. If the commodity you are buying the point for is of the same level as the planet, the points now cost 10 meg; for each level outside the native economic level, the price increases by 5 meg. The Conclave display is now shown on one line, separated by commas. When a spybeam is purchased on a player planet, the money no longer goes into the planet's treasury. If you get caught smuggling and try to bribe your way out of trouble, you'll find it harder to get away with it. **>> COMING SOON Bella is working on the underlying data structure of the game, changing the way in which statistics are scored. Once she has finished this work, there will be many changes made to the game as a consequence. Picking her brains (ugh, they're all green and slimy!) tells us that some of the changes will be: Planet owners will be able to set markups on individual commodities, as well as the planet-wide markup. Dukes will have a single bank account for their Duchy, rather than individual accounts on the different planets, and their customs force will be Duchy-wide. They will also be able to get statistics about the amount of smuggling that goes on in the Duchy. The command will not only show the planets in the duchy, it will give details such as tax rate, embargoed planets and most favoured planets. It'll be two or three weeks before you start seeing any of these changes, but this gives you a taste of things to come. **>> NEW FEDTERM IS HERE! As reported in last week's news, Bella uploaded the new version of FedTerm. She has provided both the full package (file 32) and an upgrade package (file 26) containing just the program and manual, for those who have the previous version. Here are all the new files that have been uploaded since last week: 26 UPGRADE.ZIP (Bella) FedTerm upgrade package to version 1.02. 27 DRINK.FDP (Spindleman) Small pic of his infamous purple drink! 28 COUGH.ZIP (Spindleman) Sound file of someone coughing 29 KISS.ZIP (Spindleman) Sound file of a kiss 30 SNORE.ZIP (Spindleman) Sound file of someone snoring 31 IMPCRUS.FDP (P.FLORES2) Small pic of an imperial cruiser 32 FEDTERM.ZIP (Bella) Basic FedTerm package 33 PEGASUS.FDP (Hazed) Small pic of the winged horse 34 PEGASUS.GIF (Hazed) GIF picture of Pegasus for you to amend 35 TEAMSTER.VOC (Rezrov) Sound file of the Teamster of Roissy 36 ALRMBELL.VOC (Occy) Sound file of an alarmbell 37 CIRCLEK.VOC (Occy) Sound file - sample of Bill and Ted 38 JUICEI.VOC (Occy) Sound file - Beetlejuice and the ghost 39 BOGUS.VOC (Occy) Sound file - Bill and Ted say "Boguuuus" 40 EXCLGUIT.VOC (Occy) Sound file - B & T say "Excellent" 41 CORNBALL.VOC (Occy) Sound file - Homer asking what planet Thanks to all who have uploaded pictures and sounds to the Library. Keep up the good work - we want to see many, many more! **>> FUN WAS HAD BY ALL! Last week's free weekend was an unqualified success. Somewhere between 200 and 300 new players logged onto the game to see what it was all about, and many of them have stayed. We've also seen the return of old players who had stopped playing, but came back for the weekend and have rediscovered the joys of Fed. The event of the weekend was a non-event! A multiple marriage, planned for Sunday night, didn't happen - instead the would-be polyandrists paired off into more orthodox couplings and were married separately, in a joint ceremony. See our gossip column below for the full details. There was a limited amount of Newbod-bashing, from one particular person - Spacey. The guilty party was soon blown out of the sky by Bochiman, egged on by 7 or 8 other Rich People. Other Rich People did their best to provide entertainment for the new players. Satriani organised hide-n-seek games, and hunt-the-object games, and generally had a good time. Quote of the weekend goes to Ryan: "If I ever gamble again kill, I repeat KILL me!". Condor, on the other hand, decided that since his planet wasn't available he would risk his not inconsiderable fortune on the roulette wheel - and came out on top! He actually made about 20 meg gambling. Of course, over 15 meg of that went on ship repairs, and he bought an enormous quantity of drinks, but at the end of the weekend he showed a profit of 3,177,510 groats. Not bad when he wasn't trading! **>> SEX AND THE FREE WEEKEND Sex God of the weekend was Altasren, whose sensual elfin face appeals to just about everything female in Fed Data Space! His encounters over the weekend included Marcia, Astra, Tyiez, Ashley and Apple - and that's just the ones we witnessed! In a couple of cases, ladies actually flung themselves at him saying that they heard he was the hottest lover in Fed... Altasren's female equivalent was undoubtedly Marcia (who else!) who made herself available for anyone even vaguely masculine. The good folks in CDs had a hard time getting down to the serious business of drinking whenever Plantking and Marcia were there, because he would pull her behind the piano and they would ... well, disturb the other patrons with the noises that they made. Then, there was the dance on the bar ... that was with Altasren, with Astra playing the piano. ... Ryan kept making puppy-dog eyes at Astra, even going so far as to attempting to join her in music-making by pulling out his ... flute. And of course ... the hot tub. Sharp (who styles himself as "The Dark Knight") was busy shooting cables at Marcia and dragging her off with him, whilst various other gentlemen were hopping in the hot tub and attempting to make Marcia feel like she'd never felt before. When things got too crazy in CDs, Marcia escaped to the Mare's Nest, for a little peace and solitude ... whereupon she was joined by Topper, whose lap she promptly sat on. Rest assured, he took full advantage of the fact that she wears no panties. Occy was there, too ... usually kissing her over and over again. Marcia is quick to point out that her duke =really= likes her. **>> NEW PLANETS This week two new planets were linked into the game. First came Valaria, owned by Zagmar. We sent a newsdroid to explore and it reported back much later than we had expected. It seems it had got involved in trying to free an imprisoned king, and help a beautiful queen, and generally embark on a very complex quest. Valaria is well worth exploring; the descriptions are well written, and Zagmar obviously put a lot of work into his puzzle. Valaria ranks up with other great planets such as Gotham, Jinx, and Rookery. Later in the week, Menace's planet Xhit appeared. We haven't yet explored the planet, but we've heard rumours that it is actually a recycled version of Occy's old planet Zippy! If this is true... why??? **>> GOSSIP AND SCANDAL We are delighted to announce the return of one of our gossip correspondents, who used to thrill us every week with his, her or its scurrilous reports of the goings-on in Fed Data Space, but had to flee for his, her or its life after his, her or its identity became known. Back now, with a new face and a new name: we bring you The Droid of Sleaze! YOU CAN'T TELL THE PLAYERS WITHOUT A SCORECARD... One of the wilder events of the free weekend concerned rumors of Fed's first known group marriage. Marcia and Altasren were the perps, both having thought of the scheme simultaneously (wags say whilst in the afterglow). A fair number of people were considered for membership, but as of early Saturday morning, the projected roster included Astra, Tyiez, Topper, and Menace. The plans were for an open marriage (with Fed champion lustbunnies Marcia and Altasren around, who'd believe otherwise?), lots of partying and good times in the offing. Clear so far? Well, matters took a bizarre turn when Altasren and Marcia met up with Tyiez Saturday afternoon. Menace hadn't had a chance to broach the proposal to his lady, but in any event, Alt and Tyiez decided to get better acquainted, as the case may be... To make a long story short - we have to watch out for the censors here, folks - Menace dropped by, there was an argument, and Menace was out of the picture, while Tyiez and Altasren flounced off to... ah... resume comforting each other. Still clear? Don't worry, kids. Not for long. The rest undaunted, preparations were ongoing, and Marcia brought in her taddy Tao to talk with people and make negotiations. Again, a veil of secrecy is secured with masonry nails over the chat, but things didn't go as planned... and by 2 AM Monday morning, the whole deal was in shambles and cancelled. Topper, Tao, Akiko, and others were in Duff Modem doing a post mortem, Marcia disappeared from Fed space in dismay, and Altasren was sitting in Diesel's, while a sympathetic crowd led by Hazed and Apple alternately consoled him and pumped for details he wasn't willing to give... save for the cryptic announcement that he'd heard of an offer to kill him off over the business. Are we getting murky yet? Not to worry. It gets even weirder... Topper was consoling himself in Akiko's arms (not bad for having met moments before), while Apple - seeing her chance - began cultivating the elf with a fair degree of success - and poor Marcia, having returned, sat forlorn in the deeps of space. Then... in the wee hours of the morning, at the eleventh hour, 8 AM Eastern advancing ever so close... all hell broke loose. Altasren announced his departure, but never actually did leave - and shortly thereafter, his ship was seen burning ether en route to Castillo. Our regular newsdroid is off writing her next romance novel with the dialogue she overheard at Sam's, and didn't hang around to elaborate (we hear the title is going to be "Love's Thrusting Warpdrive," having rejected "Constant As A Type-T Variable" and "Love's Drunken Orgy"), and all the barkeep had to say was that she was frosted at all the napkins the emotional couple used to dry up the tears... ... but the upshot was, Marcia and Altasren announced they were to be married after all, just the two of them - whereupon Topper and Akiko chipped in with a Us, Too - and everyone sped to Sam's for the celebrations. Caught up in the romance of the moment, DTM proposed to Tyiez, who accepted joyfully, the past forgotten - and Tao performed a triple ceremony, with Destiny, Azure, Joyrider, Axfire, and Dunsel among the revellers. The blushing brides conspired to pelt Azure with their bouquets, whereupon Destiny took the hint and proposed to his love as well - wedding date to be set. Now isn't that a nice, happy ending? Well, tough. It's the only one you're going to get. So there. :> **>> SPYNET REVIEW The tailend of the free weekend features in this week's review, hence the enormously long list of new Poor People. The new Captains this week were: Elberon, Stoneson, Cynicist, Mark, Lord, Drax, Princess, Akiko, Nursina, Dalmar, Grendel, Preciouslea, Heechee, Marlton, Cheshire, Zara, Kaighishi, Duncan, Starr, Semprini, Flimnap, Evren, Morganne, La, Toronto, and Reginald (presumably not the rubber chicken that Oxcart is so fond of!). The following were promoted to Adventurer: Tasslehoff, Balrog, Cauliflour, Akiko, Cheshire, Duncan, Cynicist, Noe, Zara, Azure, Misti, Kaighishi, and Mark. Astra, Rynait, Bartor, Trania and Cynicist all made it to Trader. Apple and Ixtix became Merchants. Apple went on to buy herself a company: FIre Dancer Ltd, Inc. Looney and Valtras both solved the awesome JP puzzle. Looney then took advantage of the free weekend to solve the fiendish GM puzzle, and became an instant Explorer. Total also reached Explorer. Their planets are expected shortly. Zagmar and Menace both became Squire with the linking of their new planets. Both of them instantly signed up with Zippy, Occy's duchy. Oppiz also joined Occy. The Super-duchy gets larger all the time; none of the other Dukes seem at all interested in attracting planets to their duchies. **>>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 FedTerm, the multimedia front-end program for the game, can be downloaded from the Federation library (option 6 on 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