**************************************** * * * FEDERATION DATA SPACE NEWS SERVICE * * * * from * * H-by-A * * * * October 7 1990 * * * **************************************** HE MADE IT AT LAST ------------------ Good old Santiago finally got a shot at the fiendish JP puzzle last week - and got it right first time! However, we are bound to say that he didn't work it all out himself. He got some of the details from Piemur (you remember they were supposed to be 'co-operating') and by judicious use of his spybeam was able to see what Pie and his helpers were up to, enabling him to sail through with no problems. Well, that's not strictly true. Although he started up the Martian Power System correctly, aided by Polarbearak and Occy, he had several frustrating days of not being able to try his hand at turning on the power - because he couldn't find all the objects he needed! Obviously someone didn't want him to get promoted straight away - now we wonder who that could have been? THE RIVALS ---------- That was a rhetorical question. It's fairly obvious who was trying to keep Santiago down. Piemur! From being bosom buddies, anxious to co-operate on the puzzle, the two have become arch rivals, desperate to advance at the expense of the other. Quite who started the war between them isn't clear; Piemur claims innocence, saying that he is only retaliating, and Santiago lays the blame firmly at Piemur's feet (or equivalent). Some of the childish and despicable things these so-called Leaders of Society are doing are: * Misleading each other about the state of the Markets * Lying about the number of factories they own * Flooding the Exchanges with goods the other is about to sell * Hiding objects they need to gain more stat points Is this how they set an example to lower players? Frankly, we are shocked! Santiago now intends to pour all his groats into building more factories, in an attempt to make his networth leap high enough to push Piemur off the top position. But bearing in mind the revelations in the SpyNet Enquirer last week, we are sure Piemur will do his best to nuke the factories as soon as they can be built. THE NEW JOBS ------------ The new system of jobs has been in the game for almost a week, and is proving popular with new players. The milk-run jobs, which are available at any time, regardless of the number of players on, mean that Trader Ratings can be increased at an almost ridiculous rate - as fast as you can move between planets! However, because the milk-run jobs offer low payment, you do need to alternate between concentrating on your Trader Rating, and finding other ways to make groats. The SlyNet jobs, available from bars, pay extremely well, and a great deal of money can be made by matching up the objects with the correct mobile. And, of course, now there are two JPs who can offer work to lower players, you can always pester Piemur and Santiago to give you jobs! And failing all else, you can try begging. We must stress that it is important you make use of both types of jobs; the milk-run jobs to increase your Trader Rating, and the SlyNet jobs to make groats. Don't just concentrate on one or the other! Because of the speed with which Trader Ratings can be increased, Bella is going to increase the number of jobs needed for Trader to 1400 - an increase of 300. The change will be made towards the end of the week. She will also perform any tweaking necessary to the job system to ensure that it runs smoothly. After these, there won't be any changes to the game for a few weeks, while she works on the theory of Speculation, the new trading system for Merchants. FEDERATION SHUTDOWN PROBLEMS ---------------------------- Fed went through a rocky few days in the middle of last week, with the game shutting itself down with regular monotony. Many of you were getting extremely irritated at continually being thrown off the system, and it certainly played havoc with the prices on the Trading Exchanges! Fortunately, the persona file was saved each time, so no-one lost anything - except, perhaps, their patience. You might be interested to know that the problem was caused by a 'Divide by GroundHog' error in the new job system. A GroundHog's rank is zero, and when the game looked at the people who were on who might need SlyNet jobs it was dividing by their rank. Since you can't divide by zero, the game was having a complete nervous breakdown and crawling off into a corner to sulk. This problem has now been fixed! But it is worth pointing out that with any multi-player game, new features do sometimes cause bugs. Although we do our best to test everything before putting a new version of the game up, there are sometimes problems that don't manifest themselves until a GroundHog logs on (as in this case), or until there are over ten people on, or even if there is a female Captain with an R in their ship name! It is impossible for us to find all these subtle bugs before you are let loose on a new version. We have, however, taken steps to ensure that problems which crash the game won't cause this kind of havoc in future. Should the game crash while a new version is running, it will automatically start up the old version again, thus preventing further crashes. The old version will remain until we have fixed the problem and put the new version up again. It's a black art, programming multi-player games! WHO RUNS THIS STUFF, ANYWAY? ---------------------------- We thought it was time to go into more detail about who we all are, which personas we use, and who is responsible for what. Firstly, there is Our Illustrious Leader (also known as OIL). Behind the green mask of Bella lies Alan Lenton, who wrote the game and is responsible for all the technical stuff, and has the final say in what changes and new features are made to the game. Shielding Bella from the glare of publicity is Clem Chambers, in charge of marketing and publicity. In a truly unoriginal fashion he has called his persona Clem. Then there are our good selves. And this is where it gets complicated! Under the joint name of H-by-A lurk two people, Fi and Nick. We are responsible for this weekly News Bulletin, for all the documentation, and for running any Special Events. We share an account, going under the name of Hazed. For this reason, when you see Hazed in Fed, you can never be sure exactly to whom you are speaking! Don't try to work out which of us it is, we work as a team and what is known to one of us is known to both (not telepathy, but daily long-distance telephone calls!) But we also have a secondary account with the persona of Cryptosporidium. Cryptosporidium is used when we both wish to be in the game at the same time - so you won't usually see Crypto without Hazed. Is that clear? Good! NEW DOCUMENTATION ----------------- Those jolly nice people from H-by-A have been up all night slaving over a hot keyboard, tidying up all the documentation for the game. In the Fed BBS, they - alright, we - have re-uploaded the information on buying and running companies and factories, in order to correct the errors in some of the base prices shown. Also in the BBS, we have put draft documentation about designing your planet. It is unlikely that anyone will actually get to the stage of being able to build their planet for some time, but it is never too early to make plans. We must stress that this is draft information and some of the things in it may change. Moving to the Fed menu itself, the Quikstart Guide has been amended to show the new job system. And the biggest change of all... Version Notes has become the repository of all information about changes to the game. It follows the section structure of The Idiot's Guide, showing all places where information contained in the downloadable manual has changed. While most of the information in it has appeared in previous News Bulletins, we advise all of you to go and have another look at it just to make sure you haven't missed anything. Version Notes will be updated regularly to ensure that new players have documentation about the exact state of the game when they start playing. Over the next few weeks, we will be doing some house-keeping in the Fed BBS; deleting and moving out-of-date messages, and removing some topics completely. So don't be suprised if you suddenly find your deathless prose gone missing! THE IDIOT'S GUIDE TO FEDERATION II ---------------------------------- Speaking of documentation, the printed version of The Idiot's Guide has now returned from the printers and GEnie tell us it will be available in about a week. Watch this space for details. And the BBS. And the Version Notes. And see us in Fed. (If you've never seen the H-by-A sales team in action, you've never lived!) BY POPULAR DEMAND ----------------- It seems you all enjoyed our recent evening of violence and mayheam so much that you are clamouring for another. So, by popular demand, we will be organising another Hunt some time towards the end of October. (Hunt for End October...? No, it doesn't quite work, somehow!) The evening will take much the same format as our last Hunt, with Explorer Hazed's Fighting School giving the theory behind death and destruction, and Cryptosporidium in charge of the practical lessons. Once again, the persona file will be backed up so for the duration of the Hunt, you can spend as much money on weapons as you like, and die as many times as seems necessary, with complete impunity. We will announce the date of the event, and further details, in next week's News Bulletin. THE BORING STUFF AT THE END --------------------------- 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, Cryptosporidium, Bella or Clem in the game * leave a message in the game log * send mail with the Federation Feedback option from the main menu Federation II has a category in Scorpia's Games RT. To get there, type M805,1 from any menu prompt and SET category 29. The Scorpia RT also has a Federation II library in the files area.