**>> SPYNET BULLETIN **>> EARTHDATE 95.08.20 **>> AN H-by-A SERVICE **>> Compiled by Hazed plus a team of specialist newsdroids **>> your news and gossip and get paid good groats! **>> CHANGE IS A-COMING We've been promising you new code in Aries Fed for a long time, but the wait is almost over. The techdroid is finishing up the current phase of changes and the goal is to get the new version in on Aries by the end of this week if everything works right first time, or the middle of next week if any problems crop up. This version has extensive changes to just about every level of the game. We'll be updating the game manuals to take account of all these changes and will have them ready for when the new versions go in, but there are some things you need to know about in advance so you can prepare for the new version. In particular, planet-owners, Dukes and Senators will need to make preparations, so please make sure you read the details below carefully so you aren't caught by surprise. The new version does not include all the changes that we plan. Once this version is in, we'll leave it running for a while before the next code is added. At the end of the listed changes are some brief details of the changes to come in later versions. **>> GROUNDHOG STUFF New players have their stats set up automatically at 35 each, but are given the option to change this if they wish. There is a new location where GroundHogs start the game: the Meeting Point. Its position is where the old Starship Cantina used to be (the Cantina has moved south of its old position). While GroundHogs are in the meeting point, a public address system gives them messages every 30 seconds telling them what to do to get started in the game. GroundHogs have jobs turned off so they do not see the notification of jobs from Transportation Central. This turns on automatically when they promote to Commander. GroundHogs are not insured, but when they promote to Commander they are given their first insurance automatically as part of the package. GroundHogs cannot custom order a ship, they can only purchase the starter special. **>> COMMUNICATIONS There are 15 XT channels. Hosts and newbods are automatically tuned to channel 1, which is designated the Help Channel. Channel 15 is reserved for Hosts and game staff. The command, which lists all the players in the game, can be more selective: lists the players in that system, and lists the players tuned to that channel. toggles on and off the SpyNet Notice messages, so you don't have to leave the game to activate it. Game Staff are able to send messages that will be received by all players, even if they have their comm units turned off. These show up as Public Service Announcements. They are used for emergencies, such as warning people that the game is about to shut down for maintenance. **>> MOVEMENT The command no longer fails when you meet another player's ship in the Interplanetary Wastes. However, it does misfire occasionally, leaving you in a random location in Sol space (rumor has it that Jarrow Shipyard has been fitting the navigation computers with Pentium chips). There's been a lot of cleaning up of the messages you get telling you when ships have entered, left, taken off, entered hyperspace and so on. The ship's viewscreen now tells you which planet you are on when you have landed. **>> JOBS There are no more milk-run jobs. Jobs can only be done via the Transportation Central workboard, using the command. The board has been increased in size and will generate more Sol jobs for 75 ton hull ships. **>> LOCATION CHANGES The Starship Cantina has moved to south of its old position. You now enter it by going SW from the terminus, not west. The TWF Office on Mercury has been replaced by Slarti's Planet Shop, which is now the access to the Explorer's Workbench (previously an option on the shell menu). To get into the Workbench, go or from Slarti's. There is a new clothes shop on Mars, Tux Deluxe. It is west from the road outside Chez Diesel (replacing the old Admin Office). Samantha's bar on Castillo has been closed and replaced with the popular fast-food joint, Fedruckers. Chez Diesel has been redecorated. The bar has gone up-market, and now has a dress-code. Anyone who tries to enter without having bought clothes is refused entrance by the bouncers. The building site and the deserted gates on Earth have gone. There are four new locations on Earth, where players go to buy additional stats (this is explained below). **>> PROMOTION REQUIREMENTS Promotion to Adventurer happens as soon as you have the required number of trader credits, without having to log out then back in again. When Adventurers are ready to promote to Trader and have been visited by Da Messenger, the message on which tells you what to do to promote changes to remind you that you have to find the Grand Master. The location of the Grand Master is unique to each individual player. He will only move if you log out of the game and stay off for more than 1 hour. The promotion to JP has been changed. You no longer have to increase your stats and then solve a puzzle. Instead you have to prove your financial ability by successfully running a company, so that it makes at least 25 meg profit during a cycle. The promotion also costs 75 meg which will be taken out of the company balance, and in exchange, on promotion to JP you will gain 10 on each stat. At the end of each ten-day company cycle, the game will check the profit last cycle. If it is 25 meg or more, it will then check the company balance. If there is enough money in the company, the game will take the 75 meg and you will be given the stats and become a JP. If there isn't enough money, the game will continue to check the balance each time you log on until there is enough money. If the cycle ends without the promotion happening, then the game goes back to looking at the profit last cycle. The old JP puzzle has been moved and merged with the old GM puzzle, which has had some changes, to make a much larger puzzle for the promotion to GM. This puzzle no longer requires you to move at speed, so network delays or slowdowns won't mess up your attempts at the puzzle. The price of stats has increased. Dex, Stam and Strength stats now cost 1.5 meg each. Doing the stat puzzle costs 6 meg and yields 4 stats. Int stats cost 3 meg; the puzzle costs 6 meg and yields 2 points. Players can now get additional stats without doing the puzzles, provided they have done each puzzle once. There are four new locations on Earth that sell the four different stats, and players can buy as many as they like at once, at the cost of 1.5 meg each for Dex, Stam and Strength and 3 meg each for Int. There is a new item which can be used for the initial Stamina puzzle, using a different command from the other methods. We will leave you to discover what it is! **>> COMPANIES AND FACTORIES The initial cost of a factory no longer covers the 100K working capital. Provided there is money in the company balance, the capital will be transferred into the factory when you log into the game and the factory becomes operational. Dukes can no longer buy factories. **>> PLANET OWNERS Population growth has been capped to prevent population explosions eating the planet out of house and home. The limit is 100 above basic for an agri planet, 200 for mining, etc. Exchange production has been tweaked, to make the operation of exchanges more predictable. Exchanges will run a little slower than previously. Duchy tax is deducted from money going into a planet treasury instead of being manufactured out of thin air. will no longer be a valid direction to use in a ground location. In the new version, the workbench checker will complain if you use it. However, the load checker (that checks all planets when the game fires up) will not be changed immediately, so existing planets won't break straight away... but you will have to change all movements before we do change the load checker, or your planet won't load. When we make this full change, typing on the ground will tell you what planet you are on. **>> DUKES AND DUCHIES Dukes will no long lose their planets when they promote. Their planet will become the capital planet of the duchy, with a new economic level, bureacracy. The planet will have no exchange, since it will be a world peopled by administrators, lawyers, court functionaries and hangers-on! It doesn't matter if the planet has a location called Trading Exchange: it just won't do anything. There will be no restriction on the number of Dukes. You will only be able to between duchies by going via the capital planets. You won't have to go via Sol any more, which means you will only have to pay one lot of tax when going to a different duchy. Embargo will have a different use. Instead of preventing you bringing goods into the duchy, it will break the direct link between two duchies, so you will have to jump via another duchy (and pay two lots of tax). Smuggling has been removed from the game completely. All references to naval bases and embassies have gone. In a later version, Dukes will have different facilities to build up the protection for their duchies. NOTE: all Dukes should check that they have a planet in their workbench. If you do not, mail us and ask us to set up workbench files for you. If you do have a planet in your workbench, do nothing now... we will mail you in advance of the new code going in, to tell you what to do to re- link your planet. Any Senators who wish to become Dukes again should mail us and request that their rank be changed. Again, if there is no planet in the workbench, ask us to set up access for you. Because the entrance to a duchy is via the capital planet, any duchy that doesn't have a capital planet will be cut off from the rest of the Galaxy. Players will not be able to enter or leave the duchy, unless they sell their ship and . So for your duchy to be viable, you will need to have a planet ready to go. **>> ODDS AND SODS The cleaning droid mobile that used to roam the Martian ruins now travels throughout Sol, and actually cleans up as it goes. It will pick up any object it finds that is not where it belongs; the object will join the recycle queue. Planet owners will be able to put cleaning mobiles on their planets in a later version. Drinking the whoosh makes you drop everything you are holding as you rush for relief. Objects that have been held in players' inventories for a long period (between 90 and 120 minutes) will be siezed by the drug squad as suspicious items and taken away for analysis. The object will join the recycle queue. This will happen no matter who has been holding the items, so the drug squad cannot be avoided by passing objects around. Networth is now displayed in score rather than by a separate command. GroundHog personas are deleted after 10 days of inactivity. All other personas are now deleted after six months of inactivity, no matter what the rank of the player. **>> FUTURE CHANGES Here are details of some of the changes still to be made. The promotion requirements to Explorer will change. The details haven't been finalised yet, but although it will involve offering jobs to Poor People, you will have to ship out a certain number of tons rather than a specified number of jobs. In order to get a planet, Explorers will have to build the hyperspace link for their new system. You will no longer be obliged to design a planet from scratch; instead you will buy an off-the-peg planet, which you can link as it is, or customise to your own specification. There will be a selection of ready-made planets and you'll be able to choose which one you want. Consumption will be changed to make it less random, since at the moment there is no way of knowing just how much your workthings are going to eat! Dukes will get goods to feed their workthings by tithing a percentage from the planets in their duchies. Dukes will have to defend their duchy against an external threat, provided by the Martians, bent on invasion or sabotage. This will provide the incentive for planets to stay in a well-defended duchy. **>> MAPPING SCHOOL TONIGHT! A reminder that tonight's special event is a mapping school to teach you all about exploring, finding your way through mazes, and making maps. It's at 7.00pm eastern. Meet in CDs to learn everything you need to know about exploring and mapping! **>> DRINK YOUR WAY AROUND THE GALAXY Of all the bars, on all the planets in the Galaxy... which one shall we visit next? Join Granny next Sunday for a bar hop, visiting some of the special bars on player planets. Where will the drunken revellers end up this time? You'll have to go along to find out. Join the fun on Sunday August 27 at 7.00pm. The pubcrawl starts in CDs! **>> THE FIGHT OF THEIR LIVES Last week's Fighting Championship in Arena Space saw several Fedders rushing around blasting each other (and the Game Hosts!) with laser blasts. It was won by Ceinwen and Starman. For those who missed the fun, we'll have another fighting championship next month. **>> YOUR FAVORITE DRINK Blargg wants to start a collection of drinks. No, he doesn't mean he's going to fill his cargo hold with cocktails from around the Galaxy: he wants to know what your favorite tipple is, because he plans to start a job as a bartender. Drop him some mail telling him what you like to drink. For the record, us newsdroids really like a glass of diesel oil, with a splash of petros and just a twist of lubs! **>> THE ANNIVERSARY WALTZ Put September 17 in your diaries... Budwarp and Deirdre plan a mega-bash of a party to celebrate their first wedding anniversary! They were being secretive about their plans, but they did tell our newsdroid that it will be The Mother Of All Parties! More details as the happy couple divulge them! **>> WEDDING... ERM... BELLS! Adventurer Chad, Defender of the Weak, Master of the Breast, feared by men, and desired by women, was married this week to the beautiful bride (?) Oxcart. Seen around Federation Dataspace, Chad had taken a fancy to Dee, Mistress of Cove, Owner of Budwarp. But much to his dismay he was discouraged by her Duke. Travelling around asking who and where the "babes in fed" were, none other than the stunning Oxcart responded to his impassioned cries for companionship. Oxcart and Chad retreated to the safety of the spyproof "Samantha's" to frolic and play in the safety of privacy. Chad, needing little encouragement from Oxcart displayed his prowess, technique, and lady killing charm. Oxcart, refusing to go too far, insisted on becoming united before parting with her secrets. So a quick but legal ceremony was held right in Samantha's with all invited including the media. Budwarp as the Duke in Residence quickly exchanged his garb for his robes of holiness. Mosquito, Satriani, Instill, Devon and Paladin were in attendance. Paladin was to give his charming innocent daughter away and seemed reluctant to do so. Devon was busy eyeing the refreshments. Mosquito was doing what ever Mosquito does when, for no reason except perhaps a death wish, Chad slapped her. A quiet came over the bar. The only sound was Oxcart rearranging her dress and wiping her face. Mosquito retreated to a corner to pout. Paladin took the oppurtunity to leave for a moment. Chad insisted Budwarp hurry as without Paladin, there would be no objections... The ceremony was quick and to the point, and was completed with the happy couple exchanging vows and sealing them with a sloppy kiss. It was decided to honeymoon on Snark. Then Wildstar entered the room, furious over the slapping of his defenseless yet dangerous wife. Listening to the honeymoon plans, he exited briefly to purchase a ship. Oxcart lead Chad the Map Maker to the LP, and he follows her into the blackness of space, confident in Oxcart's ability to protect him and his ship. Needless to say, his confidence was shortlived though valiant. He died a messy death near the orbit of Castillo. The marriage was annulled by Budwarp as it was never consumated (after the ceremony). If one orbits close to Castillo, from the silence of empty space, if you listen carefully, you might hear the cries of Chad.... "Oxcart....Where are you????.....Oxcart, I love you.......". Chad, upon his savage defeat was overheard saying, "Help, I'm lost in the hospital." **>> BGG IS PUT TO THE QUESTION On a seemingly rare moment our almost everpresent newsdroid caught up with the ever elusive Bgg, Baron of Cafe. To this droid's expectations, he was surrounded with the usual entourage of miscellaneous Fedbabes mostly of Captain's rank. Needless to say this droid grabbed the opportunity for an interview about the untimely death of Helena of Troy... Newsdroid asks, "You have been implicated as the murderer of Helena of Troy. Any comments?" Bgg exclaims, "She is dead? Hmmm....that would explain Chance's hands in his pockets!" "I guess I'll have to stop the MRs then.", says Bgg Bgg glances down at his Fedbabes. "As for implication, I have been implicated in lots of things. Just add it to the mounting list.", says Bgg Newsdroid asks, "I see that you are displaying your private parts quite publicly, however; Exhibit A consists of some severed private parts assumed to be yours. Comments?" Bgg glances downward to make sure. Bgg grabs the photo of Exhibit A and examines it closely. Bgg asks, "See that wart? It ain't mine.....Right ladies?" The ladies nod affirmatively. "What was the nature of your relationship at the time of her death?", asks Newsdroid. "The nature? You might say it was most gratifying for her.", says Bgg Newsdroid asks, "You don't seem to be mourning her at all. Comments?" "I often come to Fed in the morning....oh....um well just look around... would you be mourning?", asks Bgg Bgg glances at the ladies and winks. "These ladies were most helpful in my moment of grief.", says Bgg Newsdroid asks, "I have witness reports pairing Helena with Windman, Starman, Chance, and even one with Wildstar complete with chains, handcuffs, nipple clamps. Comments?" Bgg sighs. Bgg says, "Those reports could be true but I could bet ... this lady right here ... that she was faithful till the end. It is well known that all of those persons desired nothing more than a taste of the nectar that was Helena of Troy." Bgg bends down and kisses a pair of lips. Newsdroid says, "Thank you for the quick interview....." Bgg asks, "Not a problem. I hope you are clearer. And have you seen Carla running around at all?" This newsdroid still thinks that Bgg is and always will be a real pig. **>> THE HEARTBREAK CONTINUES Never has the death of one woman left such shockwaves and reverberations resounding around Fed DataSpace. We all knew that Helena was popular, but the list of her swains falling on their swiss army knives because they cannot conceive of life without her is getting larger by the day! Here's Kain's story. Ok, Kain's walking along the beaches of Troy, a newsdroid spots him and follows him...: Kain walks along the beach, thinking of the wonderful times he and Helena spent together... He enters the cottage, there he discovers Helena's body. He cries, "Helena!! No! This...this could not be... How could you just leave like this..." He then kneels beside her, sobbing .. nearly hours have passed, he suddenly rises and lifts her body, he takes her out by the beach and buries her, soon returning to Empyrean. The newsdroid follows Kain to Empyrean and sees Kain on a mountain cliff... overlooking the capital of this plane... In one hand, his Luminous Sword, in his other a scroll and a inked feather pen. He writes: Father, mother... I never knew this day would finally come... my friends one by one, they desert me. My brother Instill betrayed me, courting the woman I have always loved, Helena. Now she is dead, murdered by Bgg, whom she loved dearly. Why did she love a man who neglected her, ignored her, and in the end killed her? Now I have nothing more to live for. Your son, Emperor Kain Arnamenthes of Empyrean. Kain finishes, it was a summer day, dawn, in the mountains of Empyrean. The wind blows fiercely at the peak of the great Empyrean mountain cliff, Kain gazes at the rising sun..."Life is a dream, and tis morning for me... Soon this lovely dream turned nightmare would finally end.. Helena, I hope to see thee when I awake, and see thine lovely smile once ..." Kain unsheathes Luminous Sword and points it at his heart, closing his eyes, he shoves it into his chest, he then falls endlessly off the cliff... **>> TWO NEW PLANETS Squire Benson linked his new planet Musica in last week, but because of a mix-up over the system name, it's only just appeared in the game. Squire Hermes has a new planet, Olympia. We'll be reviewing both these planets in next week's news. **>> SPYNET REVIEW This week we saw the death of Merchant Ladykiller, for reasons unknown. He has returned and is starting to climb back up to his former position. Congratulations to everyone who gained a promotion. The new Captains were Peregrine, Succorsco, Reen, Pasha, Rachael, Wind, Smach, Sevrenn and Ladykiller (back from the dead). Peregrine, Darkside, Reen, Chad and Ladykiller made it to Adventurer. Stephan, Peregrine and Ashley joined the Traders Guild. The new Merchants were Stephan and Peregrine... and Ladykiller (beforehe died!) Instill solved the awesome JP puzzle. (Will he be the last to do so?) Hermes became a Squire as his new planet, Olympia, linked into the game. Asrianna's planet Sine advanced to mining level, promoting her to Thane. Kainaw's Tisnar and Devon's Tanarith are now industrial planets, and they are both Industrialists. DrSpock has promoted to Technocrat by advancing his planet Conception to technical level. **>> 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. The current Federation Game Hosts are: Freya, Porcupine, Lyrynna, Grannie, Sparky, Zzzax, Geezer, Magneto, Syfari and Goblin. Their function is to answer questions, help new players get started, and make fun things happen. In the event of a problem or question, you can: * talk to Hazed or one of the Game Hosts in the game * a message to Hazed * send mail on your host system to the Federation team: on GEnie, mail FEDII.2 or use the option on the main Fed page on Delphi, mail FED2 or use the option on the main Fed page on Cris, mail FEDERATION2 You can buy a copy of the very excellent Idiot's Guide to Federation for the paltry sum of $15.95. On GEnie, type ORDER from any main menu page. On Delphi and Cris, send a check for $15.95 to: Leah Parker, 4543 La Crescenta Avenue, La Crescenta, CA 91214-2912. **>> BULLETIN ENDS