LINE NOISE News from Chez Diesel 11 July, 1989 FACTORIES ARE GO! Last week factories finally started producing, but not without trauma! The first few factory owners sipped champagne here in the Social Centre of the Solar System as they waited eagerly for their goods to roll off the production line. But nothing seemed to be happening! Anxiously they consulted Our Illustrious Leader, who declared herself baffled. The production cycles clicked round but still no workers were being recruited. Until 100 minutes had passed, and suddenly things started to happen. At which point Bella realised that she had got the recruiting routine in the wrong place, and workers were being employed and then laid off before any inputs were taken into the factory. Never mind, goods were being produced at last! But as the commodities rolled into the warehouses, the owners became a little perturbed at the huge losses they seemed to be making. They couldn't understand how they could EVER make a profit if their costs were so high! Studying their factory displays intently, they tried to find out what they were doing wrong. Until sharp-eyed Pugwash spotted the problem - the greedy workthings were getting paid ten times as much as they should for their labour. An embarassed Bella promised to put both these problems right the next day. And for once she kept her promise, and the factories could start making profits! But there were still problems. Planets which had factories were supposed to stop producing the same goods in competition, so factories could sell their goods straight to the exchanges. But they weren't. There were a lot of 10 groat sales being made, until the owners realised what was going on and diverted the goods into their warehouses! Of course, this meant the owners had to do a bit of work in shifting the goods out of the warehouses to sell, and then ship the necessary inputs back into the warehouses. And of course they found that their huge fighting ships, with strong armour and powerful engines, just didn't have the cargo capacity to cope! And the fact that the goods weren't being sold straight to the exchange meant that cash received when they were sold went into the owner's personal account, rather than the factory account, so on paper the factories were all showing losses anyway. To solve this, the owners will have to pay the factories if the output is set for the warehouse; the amount will probably be the same rate as the exchange is currently offering. Our Illustrious Leader is also working to get the exchanges to suppress their production properly, but admits she is having trouble because the way the exchanges work is so complex that even she doesn't understand it! Apart from all these technical problems, certain owners found themselves getting into difficulties when trying to decide which factories to set up. Hawk spent hours studying the available economic data, and decided that Petrochemicals would be a good option, since they are needed for many of the Agricultural goods that are produced on Earth. So he bought a Petros factory on Earth. What he failed to take into account is that Earth has no workthings skilled in the production of Petros. At the moment, this isn't causing any problems since Bella hasn't implemented the different skill levels yet - but as soon as she does, Hawk is going to have a useless factory! So he decided to buy another Petros factory, this time on Mercury, which DOES have workthings with the correct training. But he seemed to be having trouble obtaining the Pharmaceuticals he needed as inputs. He ran out, and someone had obviously been trading recently because Venus (the only planet that produces them) had none to spare. So, in true entrepreneurial fashion, he bought a Pharmaceuticals factory! A sensible move, maybe, except that to produce 100 tons of Pharms he will need to find 100 tons of Bulk rna/dna, which is a fairly rare commodity itself. Will he now go and buy a Bulk rna/dna factory? But his problems didn't stop there. He scraped together the inputs needed but his factories STILL wouldn't produce. On closer examination, it turned out he had been paying his workthings a pittance and they had all buggered off back to the job centre. Never mind, I'm sure a player of Hawk's superior intellect has it all sorted out now. Our Illustrious Leader is letting things run as they are for a few days to make sure there are no more problems, and then will start 'tweaking' here and there. You are all welcome to make suggestions as to how the factories could be improved - mbx YETI before the weekend. Ideas under consideration already are upping the production levels, doubling the size of the lots produced, and diverting your output direct to another player's factory. Following the disaster last week where three days were lost due to irresponsible players exploiting a bug to excess, there was a re-occurrence of the problem! Bullfrog (one of the original culprits) found an alternative way to take advantage of the bug and made himself a vast fortune, handing the money over to Bilbo so nobody would notice. Unfortunately, this newfound wealth rocketed Bilbo into The Conclave, much to the amazement of all! After lengthy interrogation, Bilbo finally admitted that someone had given him the money but he wouldn't say who. Bullfrog, meanwhile, was keeping quiet about his part in this and no-one suspected that he could be the guilty one. But later he was filled with remorse and mbxed Bella the whole story - and then killed himself dead-dead! Alas poor Bullfrog, his guilty conscience got the better of him. Claims for lost earnings from the time- slip are now being deliberated by The Conclave and Bella will be making the alterations on Monday, when the next version goes in. This version will contain any changes to factories that she deems necessary, and one major alteration to promotion requirements. Would-be Explorers will now only have to get their stamina, strength and dexterity up to 92 - no account will be taken of their intelligence. This will lessen the huge gap between GM and Explorer, which was only put in to relieve Hawk and Pugwash of their excess groats! By now you should all have received Issue #002 of Data Space. If anyone is not on the mailing list, mbx me your name and address and you will be sent a copy. And please, please, send me some response to the questions printed in the first issue! Contributions for the main feature each month are welcome. Magius' article on role- playing was very well received - proving that he CAN write sensibly when he wants to! If you would like to have a go at an article, mbx me or talk to the co-Editrix, Pugwash. On the subject of Magius... the gutter- press rag TWF has returned to lower the tone of Fed. But their relaunch issue was not without problems! It seems their overzealous red- eyed scumbag alien so-called reporter uploaded an incomplete copy of the first issue, which had to be removed after only a few hours. A replacement was provided by the Editor a few days later, but unfortunately it still contained their disgusting allegations against many well-loved Fed personalities - myself included! I can only urge you all not to read this filth, in case it rots your brain.