**>> SPYNET BULLETIN **>> EARTHDATE 95.12.03 **>> AN H-by-A SERVICE **>> Compiled by Hazed plus a team of specialist newsdroids **>> your news and gossip and get paid good groats! **>> INVESTMENT BUILDS ARE GO! The new way of investing in your planet is now operational, having been put into the game on Tuesday. The builds mean that there are some hard decisions to make about how to allocate resources. It is no longer good enough to simply invest in the cheapest facilities as fast as you can in order to promote. You need to balance your investments carefully to keep your planet profitable and attractive to traders and factory owners. Builds take time, both to collect the commodities needed and to actually carry out. Since builds use up workthings permanently, you will need to invest in health to bring back some workers, as well as the more practical builds like energy and education. Don't neglect social security, as that's also a useful way to replace lost workthings. And of course, each time you promote you get some extra population. Bear in mind that disaffection has no meaning right now, but it will do in the future. Don't make the mistake of doing a lot of investment now which will have a bad effect when later code goes in. Think long- term. **>> QUESTIONS ABOUT BUILDS by Hazed I have received a number of questions about builds in my mailbox, so rather than reply individually, I have decided to answer them in the news so everyone can benefit. Q: I only needed 1 point to promote before the new code went in. Do I have to do all the builds again? A: No, you only have to build for the 1 point you are short of. The new code does not affect any investment already made in your planet. All it does is change the means of making future investments. Q: Can we have four investment builds going at any one time? A: No, you can only have one build at a time. That will apply to all kinds of builds - Explorers building links, POs building to invest, Barons building for the Duke puzzle, and Dukes building to protect their duchies. Q: How do I build a link? A: Right now, you don't. You purchase your link ready-built at the time you buy the planet. With the next release of code Explorers will have to build the link separately, but that is not in the game yet. Q: Do all materials for builds have to be in the warehouse, or can some be bought from the exchange as needed? A: Right now, they all have to be in the warehouse. Stocks in your planet have no effect on builds. We may provide a way to shift goods from the exchange to the warehouse, or we may make builds look in the exchange if there's nothing in the warehouse - we're still thinking about that one. Q: Will warehouses be emptied at time of promotion? A: No - if there are commodities in the warehouse that haven't been used for builds, they will stay there. Later, we will be provided a way for you to dump any surplus lumps that you cannot use (the command will be TORCH, which is why the light you buy from shops is now only called a Lamp, when it used to be called a Torch, too. Bit of Fed Trivia for you there.) Q: When will the Advanced Guide be updated? A: Later this week. I'm working on it right now. Q: Why was the allocate command turned off early? I wanted to promote my planet before the new code came in. A: It seems a number of you got caught by this. But our intention in putting in the new build code was to stop people from being able to invest instantly and push their planet through several promotions in one go. Planets should move through the ranks in an orderly fashion, spending some time at each rank - rather than getting to mining, having a great exchange roll, and sticking there until there's enough money to promote right to leisure. We've been talking about changing the way builds work for a long time, so it wasn't news to anyone. If anyone was really interested in promoting then they could have done so at any time. But, as soon as we explained exactly how the new system would work in last Sunday's news, a whole flock of players decided to avoid all that extra hard work and get their instant promotions in under the wire. That would have rather defeated the object of us changing the way investment works. So to preserve game balance, we disabled the ALLOCATE command a day early. No, we didn't tell you we'd done it, and I apologise for that. But if we had not done this, we would probably now have very few low- ranking planets and an enormous number of leisure worlds, which would not have been good for the Galactic economy as a whole. To refute a few things people have been saying: this decision was not taken to be "mean" or to "punish" particular players. That's not what we do. We make decisions because we think it's right for the game as a whole. **>> MINOR FIXES AND TWEAKS The new code that went in last week introduced a couple of minor problems, which will be fixed tomorrow. The game seems to have forgotten what the word INTELLIGENCE means, and people have been having problems buying intelligence points. Don't panic, you can still get points by using the short form of the word, which the game still understands (because it's a one-syllable word?). Just use BUY INT instead. If anyone has had the misfortune to reduce their bank balance below zero they will have seen their SCORE display tell them they had - groats. No number, just a negative sign. This is just a problem with the display, it doesn't affect the amount you actually have (or don't have). A change that we forgot to mention in last week's news: when someone gets slapped, the message other players see has been turned around. Formerly it was in the rather clumsy form "Hazed has been slapped in the face by Budwarp"; it now reads "Budwarp has slapped Hazed in the face". **>> FED TRIVIA TONIGHT It's trivia time in Federation, the adult space fantasy! This is your chance to demonstrate your knowledge of all things Fed- related, as our Trivia Maitreuse taxes your brain and teases out those obscure little factoids. Join us tonight at 9.00pm eastern, in Chez Diesel! **>> BE A CHAMPION FIGHTER We all know that Fed is not a violent game. It's not about fighting, it's about trading. But sometimes, it does the soul good just to have a blast! Every second Sunday of the month its your chance to show off your fighting prowess and display the might of your powerful twin lasers in a fighting championship in Arena Space. If you've never fired a mag gun or a laser, come along and pick up some tips from the masters and mistresses of space warfare; if you think you've got what it takes to show the old hands a thing or two, issue a challenge and show us what you're made of! Join us on Sunday, December 10th, at 9.00pm eastern in Arena Space for the fighting championships and show us what you're made of! **>> CHRISTMAS IS COMING... Disaster! Someone has stolen Christmas! Who could it be? Where could it have gone? Does this mean there'll be no presents this year? Unravel the mystery of the disappearing holiday by exploring Miracle, this year's Christmas planet, coming to Fed in mid-December. Santa Claus will also be putting in his usual Yuletide appearance, with his sack of bulging presents for all the good little boys and girls. Have you been naughty or nice? Christmas Eve, Grannie's pub crawl will be especially festive, and on New Year's Eve you can see in the new year with the biggest and best party in the Galaxy. And you'll get your chance to shoot Santa, too... **>> GOSSIP, SCANDAL AND LIES There's a complete absence of any this week. The planet-owners have been too busy getting to grips with the new build system to do anything sordid or disgusting, and other players have been keeping their heads (or equivalents) well down to avoid getting in the way of disgruntled POs! **>> SPYNET REVIEW Congratulations to those who promoted during the week. The new Captains were Nongchai, Rasputin, Mightyman, Mojo and Cockroach. Mojo reached the dizzy heights of Adventurer. Chicago promoted to his planet to leisure rank and became Baron of City. **>> 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