**>> SPYNET BULLETIN **>> EARTHDATE 94.08.21 **>> AN H-by-A SERVICE **>> Compiled by Hazed plus a team of specialist newsdroids **>> your news and gossip and get paid good groats! **>> GUEST NEWSDROID Next week's news will be compiled by a Guest NewsDroid, who for the time being prefers to remain anonymous in order to assist in the illicit collection of gossip. **>> WHO IS IN CHARGE? A reminder to everyone: if you need to contact the Federation team, your first contact should be Hazed. Either drop her some sendmail, or send GEmail to FEDII.2, or use the "Mail About Federation" option on the Fed page. Bella is currently working on several large projects, and cannot guarantee to log onto Fed, or even onto GEnie, every day. If you send mail or messages to Bella, they may not be received for several days. There's also the risk that if you ask both Bella and Hazed to do something like clear your workbench, they will both do it... a few days apart... and might wipe out your hard work! **>> ANOTHER REMINDER Would-be planet owners: please remember that there are standard location numbers you have to use on your planet: Orbit: 1 Trading Exchange: 3 Landing Pad: 5 These three locations are the most important, as far as the game code is concerned, and they must be consistent. Also, don't forget to include your log-on ID when you request that your planet is linked, or when you request a re-link after you've made changes. Tell us the ID every time, please. **>> PROBLEM PLANETS There've been a couple of problems with people's planets this week. First, Drspock's new world Conception was linked in, but he found he couldn't see his planet display, nor could anyone else build factories there. It turned out that a rogue space had been left on the end of the planet name in the data file. Bella has now fixed this... but the planet name has permeated itself into many different data files, and it's possible she may not have caught all of them. If any of you have any trouble with the planet, let us know. [Incidentally, the fact that the planet's name ends up in many different data files is why we won't switch personas to other accounts once they have a planet. It's just too complex.] Then Kainaw's mini planet turned out to have a problem. When people tried to jump there, they found themselves rudely dumped into the Starship Cantina on Earth, minus their spaceships! To make it worse, they couldn't buy a ship with the same name, because the game thought their ship still existed. The reason for this was that Kainaw forgot to set his Link as a space location. When the game tried to move people, in their ships, to the Link, it realised it was a land location and took emergency action - whisked them away to safety, and disposed of their ship. But because it was emergency action, it didn't tidy up properly by freeing up the shipname immediately - that was done at the next game reset. As far as we can remember, this is the first time this code has had to be used! Bella has fixed the link problem, so you can now jump direct to Tisnar without mishap. **>> PAYING FOR PLEASURE Yes, the Senate is the most powerful body of men, women and things in the Galaxy. But sometimes they try to extend their power into places it has no right to go. Into the bedroom, for example! Latest ploy of wannabe-Emperor, Topper, is to issue boinking permits, telling people that they are not allowed to enjoy a bit of hanky-panky without paying for a license. Without Senate approval in advance, any naughty stuff can result in severe penalties. Rumour has it that this is just one more way Topper is trying to keep all the women in Fed Data Space for his exclusive use! **>> STOP, THIEF! Remember when Cryptosporidium stole Tellurian's spaceship, the Eqquiraptor? Well he very foolishly left his own ship unlocked, and while he was swanning around the spaceways in Tell's vessel, Gemini came along and swiped his! We just hope she covered everything in plastic before she sat in the control seat... **>> THE POOR PEOPLE ARE REVOLTING And the Rich People are pretty awful, too! Oh yes, the old jokes are the best. Dierdre decided to stage a one-woman revolution by declaring that Poor People should no longer be forced to haul goods; instead, Rich People would have to haul for them! This was met with thunderous applause from all those present, which wasn't really surprising because all those present were Poor People themselves. As soon as a Rich Person logged on, Dee shut up and stopped trying to foment rebellion. She calls this discretion. We call it wimpy! **>> WHAT? A newbod was recently heard to ask "What is a sloppy tickle?" to which came the reply "It's a tickle that is not expertly executed". **>> PLANETS AND DUCHIES Two new planets have been linked for you to explore and trade on: Byterunner's Parabit, and Drspock's Conception. Our reports on these, and on Cicero's Roma, are below. Ciaran's Ulster is now a mining planet; so is Kainaw's Tisnar. They have both gone mini. Sean's Eire is now Industrial. Here's what the duchies look like at the moment: Rakshasa's Utopia and Alucard's Phlebos are Independent. Looney's Insanity controls Jade's Dunnottar and Surfer's Surf. Riccardo's Links has Maxwell's Dawn, Emmi's Addis, Sean's Eire, Budwarp's Epini and Dierdre's Cove. Nightstalker's Nightfall is the largest duchy, with Akiko's Mirai, Tao's Rtyui, Chainsaw's Nautilus, Rai's Seppuku, Ciaran's Ulster, Chance's Chaos, Kainaw's Tisnar, Cicero's Roma and Byterunner's Parabit. Amigan's Athens has Neuromancer's Paradigm, Mosquito's Sutra, Tellurain's Bree, Talisan's Skan and Drospock's Corona. Gemini's Ssenmaerd controls Silk's Fortymile, Dirge's Qushmarrah, Blackadder's Hyperion and Brawn's Outpost. Finally, Barberousse's Source, previously one of the most successful duchies in the Galaxy, has no planets at all. **>> CONCEPTION (or not tonight, I have a headache) This report written by Amigan A feeble signal reaches your comm unit, the Corona system is in danger and sends an urgent plea to all who would help... The Corona system, brought to us by Drspock, is comprised of the star Corona, the planets Pellucida and Fimbria and the space station Conception. You will also find an asteroid belt which is the remains of a former planet and a rogue comet. The comet, which now hurtles towards Pellucida, has prompted the call for help. Only you and your wits can save Corona's remaining life bearing planet. Your entry into this system takes you past Fimbria, a planet of locked in immense cold and Pellucida, a planet where Alpha Colony is the last stronghold of what little life that is left in this system. Your arrival at the twin rotating hubs of space station Conception is met with an automatic docking system which gently cradles your ship. The station's exchange is immediately accessable from the landing pad and other customary services are found within the station itself. Movement through the station is facilated by 'Mind Speak', the extraordinary technology of this system which permits your desires to be satisfied by a single thought, eliminating the need for signs. Not that signs would help very much since what few signs that exist are written in the native language of fallopian. In your travels through the station, you will discover a unique curio shop which contains strange artifacts from other worlds, a true collectors paradise. Other places of merit are the Visitors Hotel with its cubical sized rooms (at least they have holo-vision!) and its communal, all-species shower which is sure to promote inter-species relationships, the restaurant Chateau en Espagne with its curious olfactory menu (cf. scratch and sniff, Earth circa 1960) and an automatic banking service where you can keep your family valuables safe. You will also find a working transportal system which will take brave or fool-hearty explorers to the surface of the two planets in this system and to the secrets which may help you save this world. Drspock, Squire of Conception, has brought into life a world well worth exploring. It has well written descriptions and a unique vision of a future world in peril. Other than a communications problem with the planet administration which is currently under repair, Conception is a fine example of a world which has a nice balance of the serious and the humorous and is a tribute to the creativity of Drspock. **>> ALL SPACELANES LEAD TO ROMA Cicero's new planet, Roma, is based on Republican Rome. He has taken pains to point out that this is before the Empire period so beloved of Hollywood scriptwriters. As Cicero says in his notes about the planet, you won't find any Christian-eating lions, or orgies. What you will find is a detailed and authentic account of what Rome was like during the Republic. Exploring the planet is educational, and the lengths to which Cicero has gone to recreate his chosen period are very impressive. Everything, right down to the tiniest detail, fits in, and it makes for a very absorbing place to visit. There's a puzzle, as there usually is on planets these days. A rogue Senator wants to overthrow the Republic and set himself up as King. You have to thwart him. The puzzle doesn't depend on having the right stats: it depends on you being clever enough to solve it, so Adventurers have just the same chance as Senators. Cicero is offering 25 meg to the first person (Explorer or under) to solve Roma's puzzle, and lesser amounts to those that solve it thereafter. He is also offering rewards for typos or movement table errors. Even without such incentive, we recommend that you take a walk through the streets of Roma. **>> LITTLE BIT OF PARABIT Byterunner's new planet isn't actually a planet at all. It's a large flat silver disk, floating in space. A bit perilous, this, because a wrong step will take you off the edge of the disk into space, and it can be quite hard to get back to safety! Failure, of course, means death. So this is not a planet for those who don't watch their footing. The landing pad has all the usual services close by - the exchange is east twice. Venturing a little farther from the pad we found ourselves in a complex of warehouses. But we couldn't seem to find anything else to explore! There must be more than this, but it was hard to figure out which direction we could go in, and a wrong move often resulted in falling off the edge, with fatal results, so we didn't feel inclined to experiment. **>> SPYNET REVIEW Congratulations to everyone who was promoted during the week. The new Captains were Menace, Tripspike, Zarnaf, Zyxxy, Agnval, Stareyed, Ferill, Spudk, Amerigo, Wired and Serimerjic. Menace, Agnval, Wired and Xyzzy were promoted to Adventurer or Adventureuse. The Traders Guild admitted Xyzzy, Agnval, Reade and Wired to its ranks. Astrin, Agnval and Brain made it to Merchant. Raven solved the awesome JP puzzle. Byterunner and Drspock both became Squires when their new planets were linked to the game. Ciaran and Kainaw promoted their planets, and both became Thanes. Sean was promoted to Industrialist. Trader Agnval managed to die in the Epini system, we don't know how. But he returned and was last seen battling with the JP puzzle. Cheers rang out through the Galaxy... as Psychochicken snuffed it in Bree! Will the spaceways be safe now that the mad bird has gone? Probably not... **>> 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, Bella, Emmi, Mira, Tellurian or Tellurain in the game * a message to Hazed * 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 and Amiga. You can download a copy of FedTerm from the Federation official libraries (option 3 on the main Fed page). 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 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 has a Federation player library in the files area, Lib 5. **>> BULLETIN ENDS