**>> SPYNET BULLETIN **>> EARTHDATE 94.02.13 **>> AN H-by-A SERVICE **>> Compiled by Hazed plus a team of specialist newsdroids **>> your news and gossip and get paid good groats! **>> THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE VALENTINE'S DAY Red roses... candelit dinners... chocolate boxes tied up with red ribbon... just some of the things you -*won't*- find on the planet Saccharin, specially written for us by Freya and Tellurian to celebrate Valentine's Day. The planet shows the true relationship between Man and Woman - the rows, the irritations, the truth about the opposite sex. All those annoying little habits that drive you wild, make you vow to KILL each other! There's a parking lot maze for you to get lost in, an apartment block where you can see how She and He both live, the sleaze of the NoTell Motel, and if it all gets too much for you, Lover's Leap lets you go out in style. There's no traditional puzzle on the planet for you to solve - but there is a way for you to win a prize! On the planet are references to many well- loved (or much-hated) Fed personalities. As you explore, make a list of the ones you recognise and send them in to Hazed (use the "Mail About Fed" menu option) before Tuesday evening. Whoever correctly identifies the most will win groats, and a free copy of the new Idiot's Guide! Saccharin will be in the game until the morning after the night before, Tuesday February 15. **>> CUE GRAVEL-VOICED ANNOUNCER It was a time of heroes. It was a time of war. It was a time when men and women joined together on a quest. A quest for knowledge. For the book that held the ultimate secrets of the Galaxy. Their search took them to strange places. To strange beings. It brought them to wonders they had never beheld before. Finally, their journey came to an end, when they found the place that held the item they sought. They found GEnie's ORDER page. They found the way to obtain the knowledge contained in The Idiot's Guide to Federation. They used the ORDER option. They paid their $15.95. They were fulfilled. You, too, can possess the ultimate secrets. You can order the Guide. You can be fulfilled. Like they were. You -*can*- be a hero! **>> WARFARE AND DIPLOMACY As promised, here is some advance information to whet the appetites of all you bored Senators. Your secret senator commands will allow you to set up units to target other players. These will be set up and controlled from a new option on the Fed shell menu - the one where you [R]ead, [P]lay or [Q]uit. Incidentally, this menu is due to change when the new version goes in soon and will look something like this: --------------------------------------------------- Which service would you like? [A]bout the game [E]xplorers' workbench [M]ail - read Fed mail [P]lay Federation [R]ead the Spynet Review [S]enate members [W]arfare and Diplomacy [Q]uit - return to the host system --------------------------------------------------- You'll use this menu to read your sendmail - it won't be shown to you automatically when you enter the game any more. You'll also get details of the current Senate from this menu, rather than from within the game. Selecting [W]arfare and Diplomacy will give you something like this: --------------------------------------------------- HQ Staff Conference in session. --------------------------------------------------- What would you like from your staff? [C]reate a new unit [D]isband a unit [F]ull report [L]ist active units [N]ew orders for a unit [R]eport from a unit [Q]uit - End Conference --------------------------------------------------- You'll be able to have up to 15 spyrings in operation at one time. When you create a new spyring, you'll be asked for a name (up to 15 characters, spaces are allowed). You have the choice of setting up a diplomatic mission, a military unit, or a spyring. A diplomatic unit is used either to offer help to another player's planet, or to destabilise their economy. A military unit is the brute force approach: shooting up their ships or buildings. A spyring is for sabotage or collecting information. You then specify the target for your new unit: a naval base, owned by either a Duke or a Senator; a player's company; a player's planet; or an enemy spyring (in which case you need to know the name of the enemy unit). You need to allocate resources to your new unit: groats, and if it's a military unit, naval forces which are taken from your own base. It will take time for your orders to be carried out: a new unit could take up to 10 or 14 days to become active, depending on the type of unit. You can get a report on the progress of your unit at any time. Here's what a spyring looks like: -------------------------------------------------- Spy ring 'Smiley' (5) Designated objective: Karla's Spy Ring Status is establishing the spy ring Time to completion - 1 days Next status is established and available Unit mission is counter intelligence - designated target is 'Gerald' Cash resources allocated 60 Meg -------------------------------------------------- And here's the report on a military unit: -------------------------------------------------- Military unit 'Lenin' (15) Designated objective: Zugger's Naval Base Status is task force is disbanding Time to completion - 6 days Next status is continue current activity Unit mission is to attack naval vessels Resources allocated: Cutters 2 Destroyers 6 Cruisers 5 Marines 2 -------------------------------------------------- We'll give you more details about how warfare and diplomacy will work in later news bulletins. Meanwhile, Bella is continuing to de-bug the underlying game code that forms the new version she is working on. Once the problems are out of that, she will put in the first pieces of the spyring code. **>> FEDTERM NEWS The Amiga version of the front-end program for Federation, FedTerm, is still in beta-test, but if any of you would like to help us iron out the last few bugs, please contact us and we will give you access to the files. The programmer, Jon, has just tracked down the last of the nasty problems that was making the program crash (at least he hopes he has!) so we hope it won't be long now (yes, we know we've said that before...) **>> NEW IN THE BBS Tantras has started a topic in the Fed categories of the MPGames BBS entitled "You know you've been playing Fed too long..." Go read it and add your own contributions! **>> THE WRATH OF BELLA Bella got into a right strop recently when she logged on and discovered that once again, people had been shooting up her mobiles! She's getting sick and tired of having to replace them every time some hooligan decides to destroy one, and the last straw was Rai boasting about having wiped out Hope and Care. She presented him with a bill for the repair or replacement of the now-defunct defence satellites, and if payment is not forthcoming within 30 days will be sending round some heavies to extract the groats! **>> BLAST FROM THE PAST Here we start an occasional new series, where we repeat stories from the archives. Sometimes the stories will be from the early days of Fed on GEnie, sometimes from even earlier, back when Fed ran on the Compunet system in the UK. We'll be reprinting extracts from the old Fed news, and re-telling stories we think you'll find interesting. We'll start by telling you about one of the UK players, a young lad called Omi. He longed to emulate the great players of the game by being successful and rich, but he just didn't have the class or style necessary. Even when he exploited bugs, he managed to screw up! On one occasion, he found a bug which he thought would make him huge amounts of groats! Sadly, he didn't quite know what he was doing, and the bug tipped his balance far, far into the red. Bella bailed him out with a handout of groats and a few sarcastic words. But Omi decided to try again, convinced he knew what he'd done wrong the first time - and once again sent his bank balance extremely negative! This was in the days when it was almost impossible to kill the Pegasus mobile. Only a few people had ever done it, and only at great risk. Omi found a loophole that took advantage of the way the mobiles regenerated at the time, and started a campaign of killing Pegasus once an hour. It was risky, and Omi died many times, but he was making a lot of bounty money and that more than covered his insurance premiums. Or so he thought... Bella has eyes and spies all over Fed Data Space, and she soon found out what Omi was doing. For various reasons, she couldn't close up the loophole immediately, so she decided to take other steps to ensure the Omi couldn't carry on exploiting the bug to gain the bounty. The cost of insurance had always risen with each death, and jumped to a higher level at ten deaths. Bella tampered with the code so at 20 deaths, it jumped again. To an astronomical level. To more or less the amount, coincidentally, that Omi had in his bank balance... So when Omi died for the twentieth time and trundled off to Venus to reinsure, he got a nasty shock, and learned the lesson that Bella will get her revenge one way or the other! **>> WHO KILLED THE SENATOR? Senator Tellurian's massive-mongo-megagroat reward is gone!! Did someone spring a dastardly trap and take him by surprise? Did someone meet him in Fed Space, mano-a-mano? Did he fly into the Sun in a fit of depression? Apparently, none of these scenarios is correct. The apparent cause of death has something to do with being "distracted" at breakfast by "cream cheese, and two fingers." This reporter shudders to think of what Tellurian could have been doing at breakfast, with Cream Cheese, that could result in his demise! Maybe the cream cheese had turned pink? Maybe ......... Oh! The thoughts are too terrible! We will leave it to the readers to decide for themselves what demented thing Tellurian could have done to bring about his demise. **>> PLACE YOUR BETS, PLEASE! We've had a message from an enterprising player who wishes to set themselves up as a bookie, covering such bets as Will there be snow on the Mars landing pad on Christmas Day, or Will Oxcart ever find someone to marry him, or even Will Marcia ever find someone who won't marry her! The bookie, who wishes to remain anonymous, is opening his business by taking bets on who the father of Emmi's child will be. The odds have been set as even money on Sean; 3:1 on Blackadder; 5:1 on Skurge; 8:1 on Kedar; 9:1 on Budwarp; 15:1 on Tellurian; 10:1 on Fletcher; 17:1 on Jim; and the outsider, 50:1 on Looney. Since this is the bookie's first operation, he's putting a limit of 1 meg on each bet. Hazed has agreed to act as the collection agent, so you can give her the groats and register your bet. **>> PLANETS AND DUCHIES Once again, there's been a major change in the structure of the duchies. First, Niun returned to the game after a long absence, and the Duchy of Ocean was reinstated, bringing the complement up to five. Then, Topper saved the Galaxy from a Fate Worse Than Death and as a reward was promoted to Duke. His accession to Dukedom pushed someone up to Senator - and it was Niun who had put in the largest bid, and became the newest Senator. There followed a lot of to-ing and fro-ing as people seceded from one duchy and joined another. Marcia and Tao both left Oppiz and moved to the new duchy of Oasis. Emmi left Source to join Jim's Crime, then returned to Source, leaving Jim planet-less once again! Maxwell left Occy's Insanity to move to Source. So here's the state of the duchies at the moment: Starship and Brewski are the only two Indpendent worlds. Jim's Crime still has no planets at all. Zippo's Oppiz now has a much diminished four: Valaria, Mirai, Nautilus and Warp. Looney's Insanity has five: Links, Aytes, Mycenae, Sularin and Hyperion. The new duchy, Topper's Oasis, has two: Roissy and Rtyui. Barberousse's Source has seven: Jinx, Dahih, Fremd, Paradigm, Dawn, Addis and Fortymile. Plantking has made no further progress with his attempt to solve the Duke puzzle, as far as we know. Meanwhile, Otoole is moving up fast, having just completed his teleporter. If PK doesn't get a move on, he'll be left behind yet again. Meanwhile, Chainsaw's planet Nautilus is now a mining world, and will be turning mini soon - so explore it now while you still have the chance! **>> SPYNET REVIEW Congratulations to everyone who was promoted during the past week. The new Captains were Namu, Philip, Djet, Bevan, Destiny (back from the dead for the third (we think) time), Claudius, Samantha and Soulscream. Destiny and Chance were promoted to Adventurer. Destiny went straight on to become a Trader. Drspock reached the rank of Merchant. The awesome JP puzzle was solved by Kedar and Budwarp (who is delighted to be able to offer jobs to Poor People now). Rai cracked the fiendish GM puzzle, and then went on to promote to Explorer. Skurge also made Explorer. We look forward to seeing their planets soon. Chainsaw promoted to Thane as he advanced his planet to mining level. Topper became a Duke, and Niun a Senator, as reported above. Four people embarked on a career of enterprise by setting up companies: Trantras formed Crescent Enterprises; Sthil formed STHILWARE Systems Inc; Lonehawk started Enigmatology, Ltd; and Neuromancer started Crescent Moon. Adventurer Density (not to be confused with Destiny) went dead-dead. He probably won't be missed. On a happier note, Altasren, everyone's favorite elf, played 2000 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 * a message to Hazed or Bella * send GEnie mail with the Mail about Federation option from the main menu A front-end terminal program is available for Federation, for the PC. You can download a copy of FedTerm from the Federation libraries (option 3 on the main Fed page). The Amiga version is in beta-test. The third edition of the unexpurgated printed Idiot's Guide to Federation is now available, price $15.95. Type ORDER from any GEnie main menu and buy one. Or more! 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 Oxcart (Mail ID: J.LONG29). There are also private categories for Explorers and the Sentate, run by Krell (Mail ID: K.HILLYER). The MPGames RT also has a Federation library in the files area, Library 5. Library 18 holds the Federation News Archives. **>> BULLETIN ENDS