AN ENIGMA REVEALED
by Vorlar
I was sitting in the Fed Star newsroom, beating my head against the desk (as usual), trying to think of a story idea (again... as usual), when the strangest of occurrences took place.
The door was violently flung open, and a very angry woman, who shall remain anonymous, came charging in.
"I demand a retraction!" she cried.
"Uhh..." I stammered, unsure of what was going on.
"I demand a retraction, or you'll pay," she said.
"Pay for what?" I asked, genuinely curious.
"For defaming Dunavant," she said, narrowing her eyes at me.
Defaming Dunavant...? What?
"I'm not sure..." I began.
"You know what I mean," she said.
"I do?"
"Yes, Dunavant was NOT the one responsible for the droids."
"Wait... what?" I asked.
She just sighed and rolled her eyes at me.
"Well if Dunavant wasn't responsible, then who was?" I asked, growing incredulous.
"Well, you're the 'investigative reporter,' right?" she said smugly, "Investigate it."
Who comes storming into a newsroom and demands a retraction without explanation, and then starts insulting your profession, I wondered?
"If you don't know, how are you so sure that it's truly not Dunavant responsible?" I asked.
"Some things you just know," she said.
With that, the woman turned and abruptly left the newsroom, exacting another violent flinging of the door on her way out that threatened the hinges and the door jam.
"Well, maybe this is worth looking into," I said to myself.
If anyone has any information regarding the Droid Enigma, or anyone's possible involvement in the employment of the droids, please contact me immediately.
DEAR JESSY: PLANET IDEAS
by Jessecka
Dear Jessy,
I'm in a slump. I want to start work on my planet, and I have no idea what I want to do. I sit and stare at the screen, unable to even begin. Got any ideas you can give me?
Stumped on Sumatra
Dear Stumped,
Building a planet is an awesome experience, and can be addicting. I am constantly changing my planet, using the in-game commands to change the room descriptions. I had a wonderful time creating a new look for Halloween, and just recently, re-doing Dryad for Prometheus' and Siofra's wedding.
First thing you should do is come up with your own unique theme. Exploring other player planets might give you some inspiration, along with exploring the Sol planets. That's what the Adventurer rank is all about, getting you out and exploring so you can see some of the different things done to planets and get ideas for your own. Talk to friends about ideas. Once you get an idea, I find it's best if you come up with a whole story line for your planet, a history and such, so you have a base from which to build upon.
Second thing you should do is read the workbench manual. Just because the tools seem easy doesn't mean they are. The manual is a very well written document that walks you through building your own place. A helpful tip that really worked for me was building a test planet, something to just play around with to get familiar with the building tools themselves. That way, if I messed something up and lost all my work, it wasn't a heartbreaking experience!
And lastly, it's great to download the Fed2 Planet Sim program. This little program can allow you to walk through your planet, checking out your movement commands, and making sure everything looks like you want it to. This program doesn't check to make sure your flags are set correctly, so be sure you go back over your planet files with a fine toothed comb looking for mistakes. You can get it from the workbench web page for your particular computer: Windows or Mac.
The best advice I can give you though is to make your planet as unique as you are. This is your creation, and players will be going over it again and again. Players will return to a planet that has a well thought out theme and a fun layout. Don't make it too confusing, but don't make it boring either. Also, design your planet keeping in mind that it will be growing. As you promote through the ranks, you get more locations, and eventually events and mobiles. If you find that once you get started, you run out of room and just HAVE to have more space now - like me - then additional spaces can be purchased for 2 slithy toves.
As always, remember to have fun with it.
Jessecka
CEOs AND SHARE OWNERSHIP
by Jdcollins and Djentsch
As we progress through the ranks, we pick up advice from our fellow players; however, sometimes this advice turns out to be counterproductive. In the many months as people have promoted to Manufacturer, it has come forth that one should own 2000 shares in one's own company as well as 2000 treasury bonds. We bring you this information to let you know that you do not "have" to have a massive amount of shares in your own company to be successful.
Indeed, it is nice to own shares in your own company bringing forth another method of personal earnings at the rank of Manufacturer and above. As many Manufacturers and Financiers have found out, they mainly just go over their rank tax threshold. You end up giving the taxman 20% of your excess groats over that threshold. Generally I would recommend owning at least the minimum 500 shares in your company to ensure some future earnings potential from your company personally. However, at the Industrialist rank and higher, there is really no need for personal income of any nature except to pay your ship's fuel costs - and don't forget that large bar tab we seem to have.
Treasury bonds are an added feature that CEOs may use at their own discretion. Nowadays, by the time an Industrialist promotes to Manufacturer, the shares available from the broker are already sold. So usually, in order to buy treasury bonds, you would have to ask a Financier to give up some shares or split your shares. Treasury bonds aren't really necessary, that just means you will pay out that many shares less in dividends.
In short, owning stock in your company may be rewarding personally; however, in the long run you just end up paying more to the taxman at daily reset. Rather than buying 2000 personal shares, settle for 500-1000. Treasury bonds are also useful for those that want to pay less to shareholders, but isn't really a requirement to make your company improve. Having fewer shares personally and fewer treasury bonds will help ensure there are plenty of shares available for Financiers and less money that you have to give to the person that everyone loves to hate, the Tax man.
TO COMM OR NOT TO COMMM... THAT IS THE QUESTION!
by Jessecka
Well, it's Holiday time in Fed, and along with the festivities comes an increase in players, and most importantly, new players. No doubt about it, Fed II is growing in leaps and bounds, and new players are logging in all the time. Once upon you were a newbie, and if you can remember back that far, hehehe, just think about how confusing the new world was. Now, add in the endless chatter of fast moving conversations on comms, and a newbie can be lost in the scroll. But fear not, Fed II has a cure for that!
Create your own channel! Yes, your very own channel to talk about whatever your heart might desire. To create a channel, simply type in the name you want to use... example, 'JOIN CHANNEL CHATLINE'. Of course, there are lots of channels already created which you can join, one being the Role-playing channel created by our favorite fed kitty, Catspaws! To see a list of channels, type 'DI CHANNELS'.
So most of us forget about the comms, and tend to talk on them like we would in a chat room. I know, I do this myself sometimes, and have to remind myself to be quiet. You never know though when your topic of conversation might be offensive to someone in another culture or country. And even when you're talking about something entirely harmless, the amount of comm messages might cause enough scroll to confuse a newbie.
So, we need to, as a community, reprogram our thinking a bit. Speaking of programming, a really simple way of joining a channel each time you enter Fed II DataSpace is to add the command it to your Fedterm Startup Key, F1.
Speaking of chatting and f-keys, I think I'll start my very own channel devoted entirely to chat... I'm gonna call it Chatline... imagine that! Now, remember to add that to your F1 key!
LEISURE TIME
by Vorlar
*BUZZ*
I practically leapt to my feet, throwing the covers off me and slamming my hand down on the alarm clock.
"Going to be a great day," I thought to myself.
Leisure time is something I don't often realize. You see, in my busy new life as a Financier... Okay, in my new life as a lazy Financier who doesn't do anything other than journalism, I get lots of days off. I enjoy days off. I might never get bored of having them.
It's just that as with most things in my life, they don't ever seem to work out the way that I intended them to. So what I think is going to be leisure time, turns into Investigative Journalist time.
I stepped into my shower pod and took a quick shower. I pulled on my suit, ran a comb through my hair, and headed out for some food.
On my way out the building, I bumped into a cleaning droid.
"Sorry," I said.
"No. Problem," it said robotically.
I was cursing the lack of sophistication of the cleaning droids in my building when my stomach suddenly felt uneasy.
"No, it couldn't be..." I thought.
I turned and headed back towards the droid. As I reached it, I grabbed it by the shoulder and spun it around.
"No blood," I said.
"No. Blood," the droid repeated.
"Oh shut up," I blurted.
"Oh. Shut. Up."
I wasn't in the mood.
"Stupid droid," I cried, kicking it in the stomach.
"Stupid. Human," it responded, whirring around and off down the hallway.
I muttered to myself as I walked towards the elevators. Was I crazy? I didn't think so. I knew what I saw.
As I called the elevator to my floor, memories came flooding back.
"I tested the blood in the cylinders. It's human," she said.
"Ugh... not good." I'm so poetic.
"That's not all," she continued, "It's laced with some sort of biological agent. A virus of some sort. My guess is that it was placed there so that if the droids were shot and destroyed, they'd still kill whoever shot them."
I knew I saw a cylinder of blood in that cleaning droid. Was I crazy? Where did it go? Why was it in my building?
Anyone with information on Dunavant's droids or the cylinders of blood please contact me immediately.
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